Pk 661: Call of Death

PK 661:  Call of Death

 

By: Hajra Kabir

P

akistan International Airlines (PIA) is government owned airline serving Pakistan since 10^th January 1955. It is Pakistan’s largest airline and is comprised of 35 airplanes. PIA is ranked among the worst airlines in the world and the history of PIA has proven how bad the conditions of the aircrafts are in Pakistan. PK-705 First plane crash took place on 20^th May 1965 because of some unknown reasons near Cairo which resulted into the death of 119 people. 21^st February 1966 PK-17 crashed due to hitting a vulture in cruise flight near Faridpur and 23 people died. 6^th august 1970 PK- 625 plane crash due to thunderstorm near Rawat resulted in 30 causalities. 16^th December 1978 test flight ended up as a plane crash because both engine lost their power. 25^th august 1989 PK-404 crashed near Bunji resulted in 54 causalities. PK-268 crashed on 28^th September 1992 near Katmandu 167 people died. On 10^th July 2006 PK-688 crashed near Multan and took away the lives of 46 people. Several other incidents took place but they did not resulted into any causalities but are the proof of the incompetence of government. From 2010 onwards if we see back we will come to know about how faulty our PIA is PK-653 ran undershot of runway on 31^st August 2012. PK-787 faced technical problem in one engine on 18^th November 2012. On 11^th February 2013 the port side main landing gear of PK- 259 collapsed. On 6^th October 2013 PK-213 caught fire due to some unknown reasons. PK-451 faced some technical difficulty in landing on 8^th August 2016. Now coming towards the most recent and the most horrific incident that took place; on 7^th December 2016 PK-661 enroute to Islamabad from Chitral

crashed near Havelian Abbottabad and as a result of which 47 people died including Junaid Jamshed. This aircraft had its first flight in 2007. While in 2009 this aircraft was damaged during landing attempt at Lahore but was repaired and became the part of PIA aircrafts once again and life of this plane came to an end on 7^th December. According to the mother of Late First officer this plane was totally unfit for flight. As her son was part of PIA he kept on telling his mother about the worst conditions of these aircrafts. He kept on complaining that these crafts might not be allowed to fly in dangerous routes. One passenger told that he heard some creepy noises from the engine of this aircraft when he was traveling from Islamabad to Chitral.

Now question arises here is that whether it be passengers or the staff members of Pakistan International Airline they see the faults in aircrafts and they know that it is dangerous to fly such aircrafts but where are the concerned authorities? What are they doing? Can’t they see the bad condition of this government owned airline. This is actually the incompetence of our government because they are very much busy in taking care of their seat rather than solving the problems being faced by the local people. Government and concerned authorities are still sleeping after this horrific incident. PIA received criticism of its practices and accusations that it did not investigate the aircrafts thoroughly. Two days after this crash another PIA pilot refused to fly an aircraft because of its faulty engine and still government has allowed to fly these unfit aircraft. Instead of making money from these faulty aircraft government and concerned authorities should take action they should ban such aircrafts because PIA has already taken away the lives of 750 people and we cannot afford to lose more lives because of the negligence of government. Government is supposed to take some serious action against this issue otherwise Pakistanis should stop using this service so that it might collapse due to financial crisis.