Pilot sent Mayday with 'lost engines'; black box found

The pilot of crashed Pakistan International Airlines jet sent a Mayday and told controllers the aircraft had lost power from both its engines on its second attempt to land, according to a recording of talk between the pilot and the controllers.

After the aircraft called off an earlier attempt to land and went around for a second attempt, a controller radioed the pilot of flight 8303 that he appeared to be turning left, suggesting he was off-course.

The pilot replied, "We are returning back, sir, we have lost engines," and the controller cleared the plane to land on either of Karachi airport's two West-Southwest-facing runways.

Twelve seconds later the pilot called "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday" and was again cleared to use either runway. There was no further communication from the aircraft, an Airbus A320, according to the audio record.

Black box found

An important part of the black box of the ill-fated plane has been recovered by a rescuer at the site. According to details, quick access part of the black box was found a rescue worker that has been handed over to the Civil Aviation Authority.

This part of the black box contains the record of conversation between the traffic control and the pilots as well as the conversation being made in the cockpit.

The CAA will send the recovered data abroad for de-coding to know about the circumstances that led to the crash of the plane.