RMAF chief General Affendi Buang said there were grounds to believe the crash had been due to either one of these errors.

He said it would take some time to verify the evidence in support of either theory.

“We have compiled a lot of evidence. For the time being, we are focusing on two important aspects.

“These are the engineering and technical factors, and the human factor.

“We believe it (the crash) was caused by either of these.

“We cannot give any specifics on either theory yet as all evidence needs to be verified and all this will take some time,” Affendi said in a press conference in Wisma Pertahanan here today.

Until then, he said, RMAF’s fleet of Beechcraft B200T would remain grounded.

On Dec 21, Major C Kayamboo was killed when the turboprop plane he was piloting crashed near the RMAF Butterworth air base. Three others in the aircraft survived but were badly injured. They were on a training mission.

Meanwhile, Affendi said in a speech earlier that RMAF must act on the Auditor-General’s Report findings of unsatisfactory progress on its project to build a RM73 million technical service centre for jet fighters.

After 10 months, the project was reportedly only 3.3% completed when it should have been 39.1% completed.

The project was targeted for completion 78 weeks after commencement on March 10, 2014, but unqualified contractors resulted in delays.