RAWALPINDI: Mohammad Zubair, one of the only two survivors of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane crash in Karachi earlier this year said he would not travel by air again.

The other survivor, Zafar Masood, travelled from Karachi to Lahore on PIA flight PK-304 on Sunday. He had asked the airline staff at the Karachi airport to allot him the same seat that he had been travelling in on the day of the crash on May 2.

Mr Masood was received at the airport in Lahore by PIA CEO retired Air Marshal Arshad Malik.

However, Mohammad Zubair told Dawn he did not want to travel by air again and instead travels by road because of safety concerns.

“I had already said I will never travel by PIA, however, I would consider it if I was offered a journey like the other survivor Zafar Masood,” he said.

Mr Zubair said he was in seat 8-F when the plane crashed and a wing separated from the body, leaving a large hole.

“I jumped out of the hole and suffered burns on both my hands,” he said.

Mr Zubair is a mechanical engineer. He said he has visited Islamabad and Lahore and is now working on a project in Sialkot, but he does not travel by air anymore.

When asked whether anyone from the PIA administration had contacted him after the crash, he said PIA contacted him twice to pay him instalments of Rs500,000. He said no one has offered him a journey on a PIA flight.

PIA spokesperson Abdullah Hafeez said the PIA management has been contacting Mr Zubair to persuade him to begin travelling with them, adding that the CEO has tasked a team in this regard.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2020