Fedor Larin /Anadolu Agency/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Investigators are looking at pilot error or mechanical failure as possible causes of a FlyDubai flight’s deadly crash in Russia, a representative from Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a briefing Saturday.
Investigators suggested earlier that bad weather could have been the primary cause, but now they say that, if the crash wasn’t caused by a mechanical failure, it may have been caused by the pilot not handling the weather conditions properly.
“Two theories of the plane crash are being explored… The first one is pilot error in acting in difficult meteorological conditions, and the second is mechanical failure,” said Oksana Kovrizhnaya, a spokeswoman for the Investigative Committee’s Southern Transport Investigative Department.
Kovrizhnaya also said that wind speed at the time of the crash was reaching 18 meters per second, which could have caused the pilot error.
“Winds in and of themselves should not bring an airplane down. So perhaps it was a contributing factor,” ABC News aviation consultant Col. Stephen Ganyard said.
“I think something else went wrong,” Ganyard said. “Perhaps pilot disorientation. Perhaps this pilot was looking out the window trying to find the airport at night. And when you have night, and you’ve lost horizon, it’s not hard to get visually disoriented and lose track of which way is up.
“I think we’re going to find something that indicates that this was human error,” he said.
While the cause remains unclear, FlyDubai believes the crash was “an accident,” not terrorism, an airline spokesperson told ABC News.
Russian investigators have not said they are pursuing terrorism as a main theory.
Investigators are now looking at radio exchanges between the pilots and the air traffic controllers.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board says it will contribute to the investigation.
All 62 people on board were killed when the flight crashed in Southern Russia, according to Russia’s Emergencies Ministry,
The victims included 55 passengers and seven crew members.
The passengers included 44 Russians, eight Ukrainians, two Indians, and one Uzbekistani, and the pilot was Greek, officials said.
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