Islamabad plane crash: Investigators to probe possibilities of sabotage, hijacking

ISLAMABAD - The Pakistan government has formed two separate investigation teams to determine the actual cause of Wednesday’s plane crash near Islamabad, in which all 152 passengers onboard were feared to have been killed.

The tragedy took place at about 10 a.m. when a domestic passenger plane crashed behind the mountains of Margalla Hills.

Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority had said that the Airblue plane, which took off at 7.50 a.m. from Karachi to Islamabad, crashed minutes before landing.

The first team, led by Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Director General Zafarullah Khan, has been assigned the task of investigating the possibility of sabotage.

As the plane had flown over the no-fly zone for quite some time (over the Parliament House and the President’s house), the investigation team would also scrutinise the credentials of the passengers, and look into the possibility that a suspect might have tried to hijack the plane to use it as a “flying bomb”.

“The investigation team will look into the possibility whether the plane, flying away from the defined route, was to be used as part of an act of sabotage,” The Daily Times quoted a source, as saying.

The second team, led by Civil Aviation Authority Safety Investigation Board President Air Commodore Khawaja Abdul Majeed, will focus on human factors, technical fault and weather conditions. The team will also record the statements of eyewitnesses.

Examination of the plane’s black box will also help the investigators in ascertaining the real cause of the crash.

Both the committees will present their findings to the federal government. (ANI)