There's a video of the crash site in this article.

Muhammad Irfan Elahi, CAA chairman, confirmed that one engine was known to be out of order.

The word 'confirmed' adds much weight to this statement but.....I can fully understand another meaning to this wording. English is not the first language and there might be some stress situation in a press conference/release. "out of order" means it's not working correctly. It is said that the crew reported an engine malfunction in the air = out of order. It does not necessarily mean it was not serviceable before takeoff.

The eyewitness accounts were also suspect, one stated it was on fire and enduring "turbulence" then crashed, apparently the pilot was trying to avoid the buildings... the other said they saw fire after the crash...either way the black boxes should aid greatly. Curious to know if a drone/missile might be a possibility too...but again engine issues could relate to thousands of scenarios.

Chitral is a 5741 ft runway 4921 ft MSL; can anyone run the numbers and say if an ATR 42 definitely could or couldn't get off the ground from there on one engine with the reported load / WX conditions?

Can someone explain to me why someone is asking if this crew took off with one engine inop? I mean, come on. Let's give the professional pilots a benefit of the doubt as there is so little concrete information to hand. Look what has to happen: Tower operator at the departing field watching the take off, in the position of saying: "hey, PIA XXX, one of your props isn't turning!" That kind of speculation is bizarre.

Perhaps some losses in translation are occurring, per RAT 5's point, or some people are speaking with incomplete information. It happens.

from my read it's just from reading too much into the posts.

I'd let it ride for the time being as it's not germane to further discussion at this time

If that's what they are asking a performance manual couldn't give you the answer even if you wanted it to :}

Nothing would surprise me.
 

I recall an accident several years ago which involved loss of directional control during the take off run. The crew had attempted to depart after one of the two engines failed to start. The crew had hoped that it would be possible to carry out an air star of the second engine once they got airborne. All survived and the accident report makes hillarious reading.

Probably was this one:

http://www.ntsb.gov/about/employment...98FA047&akey=1

Re, "Chitral is a 5741 ft runway 4921 ft MSL; can anyone run the numbers and say if an ATR 42 definitely could or couldn't get off the ground from there on one engine with the reported load / WX conditions? ".

When English is not the native language of the country issuing statements on an accident, the potential for misunderstanding is high.

The CAA statement can be taken several ways. The most likely interpretation is probably that the left engine was running (prop turning, which is the only evidence anyone except the crew, the mtce staff & the recorders will have), but had a maintenance issue. Whether that was actually the case, and if so, whether it had been signed off or not, will be eventually confirmed by the usual ways.

Apparently the PCAA has released an initial report.

It would seem that an uncontained engine failure caused significant damage to the wing, rendering the aircraft uncontrollable.

Initial report says PK-661?s left engine malfunctioned - Pakistan - DAWN.COM

:sad:Damn strong gravity they have over there.

What's that in knots?

66,300kts give or take....:confused:

Super VC-10

I view the above as highly suspect and/or premature. There is no direct quoting of the authorities as to cause and result. Just the normal leap of reporters.

from the suspect article referenced:

Photo showing a substantially complete rear fuselage:

http://s4.reutersmedia.net/resources...=LYNXMPECB705R

Most of the stories are just fake, how can an aircraft depart without being cleared by the maintenance department? And also every peasant living in near by villages claims he has seen the crash actually happening, one guy went off board by claiming in a newspaper that he could sense something was wrong with the aircraft and he followed it riding his motorbike and saw the crash happen....
Crap... I have been there and it's a hilly terrain, the final 30 mins can be travelled on foot only..

Better we wait for professionals do their work and come up with something legitimate.

The altitude is given in hrs:mins:secs so perhaps the journalist confused the secs to be millisecs. Local reporting has been quite poor with TV channels wanting to be the first to show "breaking news". At one channel, they had a pseudo-religious scholar-cum-failed politician-cum-tv prize show host-cum-entertainer-cum-newly turned anchor interviewing a (failed) pop singer and tv actor on technical aspects of the flight.

The "known to have engine problems" is being (mis-)reported because the said plane has had an incident in 2014 with left engine shutting down during a flight from Skardu to Islamabad. It is not because of some known issues immediately prior to take-off.

There are several key strategic installments near that area so its highly likely that additional information (radar) is available but not released publically.

Apparently, the pilot did mention he had problems with the left engine and also some (possibly credible) reports of people seeing fire on the plane prior to impact.


Also please update the title. This accident happened near Havelian and not near khyber

ATRs are not really famous for their one engine out altitude capabilities...

Anybody knowledgable here, who could provide the single engine ceiling? How high is the terrain?

I know, that Air Dolomiti used to have escape routes crossing the alps. Does PIA have anything like that?

I was flying ATR 42/72 in the old (-300/200/212) and the new (-500) version from 1997 to 2004.
Crossing the Alps we had to do driftdown-calculation, especially for the ATR 72-200 in the summer for the planned route
The ATR 42-500 was safe at any MSA below 14000ft with MTOW and ISA +15.

Unfortunately I do not know the terrain on their route. Maybe somebody could post an enroute chart.