ISLAMABAD, July 13: The opposition members belonging to the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) have submitted an adjournment motion to the National Assembly Secretariat seeking a debate on the July 10 incident of PIA Fokker plane crash near Multan killing all 45 people on board.

ARD parliamentary secretary Izhar Amrohvi on Thursday told Dawn that nine members of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML- N) had signed the motion, submitted under Rule 92 of Rules and Procedure for Conduct of Business in the National Assembly 1992.

It may be recalled that a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Fokker passenger plane crashed into a field shortly after take-off from Multan Airport on July 10 killing all 45 passengers and crew onboard, near Suraj Miani, about four to five kilometres away from the airport.

The dead included two high court judges, a university vice-chancellor, a neurosurgeon and two army brigadiers.

The Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy members, in their motion, stated that the president of the Pilots Association had already informed the PIA administration that the Fokkers in operations were too old and should be grounded before any deadly accident.

So much so the manufacturers have stopped manufacturing these aircraft and their spare parts.

“The government and the PIA ignored the recommendations of the Association, which is a failure on part of the government, resulting in the accidents of Fokkers in a span of few years,” the members said.

Therefore, the opposition members have asked the speaker to discuss the incident after adjourning the normal proceedings of the house keeping in view the importance of the issue.

The adjournment motion has been signed by Raja Pervez Ashraf, Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, Sherry Rehman, Syed Khurshid Shah, Nayyar Bokhari and Naheed Khan of the PPP and Pervaiz Malik, Tehmina Daultana and Maimoona Hashmi of the PML-N.

Meanwhile, information secretary of the PPP Sherry Rehman in a statement demanded a high-level probe into the incident involving the ill-fated flight PK-688 that crashed near Multan on Monday.

Ms Rehman said those responsible for criminal negligence that resulted in the loss of precious lives must be taken to task immediately.

Otherwise, she said, the latest incident would become another embarrassment for the government’s growing list of scams.

She criticised the government for refusing to show moral courage by accepting responsibility for failing to protect the lives of innocent people and resigning to set a precedent of accountability.

Even in the incident’s aftermath when the risks of PIA’s Fokker planes had been revealed in the national media, she said, the government had refused to ground the Fokker aircraft or suspend the authorities concerned, adding that it only showed that the government was too arrogant to put public interest before its own top bosses involved in poor performance.

She recalled that the government had completely ignored the warning of its parliamentary secretary on defence Maj (retired) Tanveer Hussain in May 2005, regarding the pathetic conditions of Fokkers, asking the government to ground the entire fleet. She demanded that people should be told the status of a 2002 PIA plan of replacing the fleet of Fokkers with ATR aircraft.

Ms Rehman said the government knew fully well all the risks associated with its over 20-year-old ailing fleet of Fokkers and had been warned by several experts in the past about the possibility of an accident yet, the government stubbornly refused to pay heed to the matter, thereby criminally endangering the lives of its citizens.