An Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) provisional report published on 8 April has pointed to possible pilot error causing the crash of a Flydubai flight at Russia’s Rostov-on-Don airport on 19 March. The crash claimed the lives of 62 people on board the flight.

The IAC report cited that the plane hit the ground at 600 kilometres an hour (km/h) at a pitch angle of 50 degrees following two attempts to manually land the plane, a Boeing 737-800, amid adverse weather conditions.

Citing the report, the US’ Wall Street Journal said the crew attempted a first landing in adverse weather conditions with the autopilot turned off. The landing was called off because of wind shear, a sharp changing in wind conditions that can be difficult to handle.

The crew then circled the airport, some say for about two hours, waiting for weather conditions to improve before attempting another landing. The second approach was also flown with the autopilot turned off. When the plane reached around 220 metres (722 feet) in altitude, the crew again called off the attempted landing, initiated a climb and applied take-off power to the engines.

The error is understood to have occurred when the plane was attempting to climb after the failed second landing and the crew pushed the plane’s nose down sharply causing the rapid descent, from which the plane failed to recover.

Flydubai said it is aware of the report and that it has requested for more conclusive evidence. The crash was the first fatal accident involving either of Dubai’s two airlines Emirates or Flydubai.