July 26, 2006	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 29, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, July 25: The chairman, National Assembly Committee on Defence and Pakistan Muslim League Chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain on Tuesday said had Fokker fleet been grounded in time the Multan crash would have been averted.

It was first pointed out in a PIA board meeting in 2002 that the Fokker fleet was dangerous and too old to fly, and PIA management decided to phase out the aging Fokkers.

However, the defence committee was told on Tuesday the decision could not be implemented because of red-tape. The federal cabinet finally decided after the Multan crash to stop using Fokkers for passenger flights.

The committee chairman was also pessimistic about any outcome of the probe in crash and wanted the national flag carrier to concentrate more on finding ways to prevent such accidents in future.

Chairing the meeting of the committee held to discuss the crash that left 45 dead, Mr Shujaat said: “We haven’t so far been able to get the report of C-130 crash that killed the then President Ziaul Haq in 1988, so there are little hopes that something would come out of the Fokker crash inquiry.”

Mr Shujaat said he would recommend to the government not to run PIA as a commercial and profit earning organisation so that the interests of the public were not compromised. “Its strange that PIA is one of the most expensive airlines,” he said adding that it remained to be seen if it was giving quality service.

The chairman PIA Mr Tariq Kirmani tried to bag the credit for introducing flight safety in the airline as he told the committee that prior to his joining the airline there was “no culture of flight safety and health safety.” However, he said, this culture has now started taking roots. He further said that when he joined the airline the engineering was in very bad shape and PIA did not have an emergency response plan when he joined.

The only noteworthy steps he could tell the committee regarding his initiative on flight safety was that he upgraded the post of general manager (flight safety) to senior vice president (flight safety) and got the emergency response plan drawn up. Giving the job description of the SVP Flight Safety, he said, the incumbent would inform him about the incidents and so that safety matters could be focussed.

When he was quizzed by MNA Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, the chairman could, however, not hold on long to the credit of introducing flight safety culture in PIA, as he retracted from his original statement that there was no safety culture previously, and said there was some safety concept, when he joined, but he had vastly improved it.

Regarding the future of Fokkers, Mr Kirmani said, although the cabinet had allowed their use for cargo, it had now been decided to sell them out and the advertisement for the sale of remaining 5 would be floated soon.

Replying to a question by another committee member, Mr Kirmani looked reluctant for going into a judicial probe into the Multan crash.

Certain members raised the issue of calibration of radars as they claimed that calibration of all 6 radars was overdue at the time of crash, but the Director General Civil Aviation Authority Air Marshal Pervaiz Nawaz could not give a satisfactory reply to defend the position of the CAA, which is the regulator of civil aviation. The matter would now be discussed at a separate meeting.

Air Commodore Junaid Amin, who is heading the probe team, while deposing before the committee said the ill-fated Fokker crashed 50 seconds after getting airborne.

He said it had been established from the statements of witnesses that the aircraft was maintaining a low altitude and was drifting towards right.