The ill-fated Super King B-200 BSF aircraft that crashed here yesterday had "lost contact" with the Air Traffic Control after attaining a height of 500 m following take-off from the Delhi airport, sources said today.
It is also not clear at this stage as to whether there was any loss of engine power and the pilot attempted to rescue the plane.
"We don't know whether there was a failure of engine power, and in spite of that, he (pilot) tried to land or take a left turn. All that is not known," a civil aviation ministry source said.
"There was no communication after it went to a height of 500 m and then it did take a left turn. Why it took that left turn is a subject matter of inquiry," it said.
"These are the only three things we are investigating," the source said. The Beechcraft Super King plane crashed near Dwarka and burst into flames just outside IGI airport shortly after take-off killing all 10 people on board.
The 1995 vintage aircraft suddenly took a kind of U-turn towards the airport after taking off at 9.37 AM and hit a tree while apparently approaching to land following a possible technical problem, according to officials from the Air Traffic Control and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
Meanwhile, the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) of the plane has been retrieved from the crash site here and it has been sent for further investigation.
The government has already announced setting up of a four-member committee, headed by a senior Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) official to carry out the investigation into the causes of the accident.
Deputy Director of AAIB R S Passi will be the chairman of the committee while Capt Anant Sethi, chief pilot of Madhya Pradesh government as its Operational Member, besides, two other members from the Bureau.
Published 23 December 2015, 16:38 IST