More than a week after the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) crashed near Karachi, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said in a letter that the pilot of plane did not follow the instructions of the air-traffic controller (ATC).

On May 22, the PIA A320 plane, en route from Lahore, crashed in Karachi’s densely populated Model Colony area near the city’s airport that left 97 passengers dead.

The recent letter from CAA official Iftikhar Ahmed to the PIA safety and quality assurance department, while pointing out “non-compliance of ATC instructions” by PK-8303 and asked him to “ensure avoidance of recurrence of such situation in the interest of flight safety”.

A PIA spokesperson told Dawn news on Wednesday that the national flag carrier would respond as per regulations.

The Pakistan Airlines Pilots Association (Palpa) said on Wednesday that release of limited details about the crash was tantamount to influencing the ongoing investigation.

The duty approach controller had raised a non-compliance report in respect of the pilot of PK-8303, the letter said.

The letter said that PK-8303 was cleared to an altitude of 3,000 feet while entering the control zone that is 25 nautical miles (NM), but the aircraft was spotted at a high altitude of over 5,000 feet over Makli.

The aircraft wings during the crash landing hit the houses in the residential colony before crashing down.

The plane with 99 people on board came for landing but just before landing the pilot said he was going for a go-around. While coming for a second landing, it developed some problems and crashed.

Approach tower deals with the aircraft from the start of descend till it is five nautical miles and then hands over to local tower (Karachi tower in this case) after the final landing approach has been established.

However, a question arises as to why the approach tower did not transfer the aircraft to Karachi tower, which could have physically seen if the landing gears were down or not when the pilot came in for first landing, said Dawn news said in a report.

The flight was coming from Lahore to Karachi after the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) allowed limited resumption of domestic flights last month following weeks of lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Last year, in June, seventeen people were killed after a small military plane crashed into a residential area in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi.

The deadliest air disaster on Pakistani soil was in 2010 when an Airbus 321 operated by private airline Airblue and flying from Karachi crashed into the hills outside Islamabad while coming into land and left all 152 on board dead.