Civil Aviation Minister Steven Davis provided an update on Air Niugini’s ATR 42 cargo plane crash.
The plane crashed near Madang Airport on October 19 2013.
The plane was carrying approximately 3500 kilograms of cigarettes.
It’said whenthe captain rotated duringthe take-off run,the nose wheel did not lift offthe ground andthe Captain reported thatthe flight controls felt very heavy in pitch.
The captainthen abortedthe take-off andthe aircraft ran offthe end ofthe runway and over a bank approximately 3 meters high. The aircraft continued a futher 100 meters.
The right wing impactedthe airport fencing causingthe aircraft to turn 45 degrees tothe right andthe right outbound wing and engine to catch fire.
The craft has not been inspected yet. AccidentInvestigations Commission investigators are on ground togther with representatives fromthe manufacturer ATR who arrived on Wednesday.
The aircraft will be moverd from its current position tothe aerodrome area for a thorough inspection onthe aircraft control linkages and ther aircraft systems to try to piece togther a possible cause ofthe accident.
The Cockpit Voice Recorder andthe Flight Data Recorder were recovered in good condition and hand delivered tothe Australian Transport Safety Bereau early this week for data download.
The downloaded data is already with AIC who will futher analyse it. British American Tobacco is cooperating withthe investigation team to verifythe weight ofthe cargo that was loaded.
