ISLAMABAD, Sept 16: The National Assembly was Thursday informed that Pakistan International Airline (PIA) has suffered a loss of around $17,000 since January 2003 due to incidents of tyre burst and fire.

Parliamentary Secretary for Defence, Maj (retd) Syed Tanvir Hussain informed the lower house in response to a query raised by Khawaja Saad Rafique that there were seven and four incidents of tyre burst and fire involving PIA aircraft, respectively during this period.

He said the wet runway/anti-skid failure was the main reason of tyre bursts in all cases. In case of fire incidents, the parliamentary secretary said, "as such no clear reason is known, however, as per the recommendation from Boeing Company, the grease used for lubrication is switched from NIKO to Aero shell No. 22."

The Boeing has also recommended not to use thick layer, advising only thin layer application, he said, adding, this has, however, solved the problem. Regarding foreign airspace violation by PIA aircraft, Mr Hussain said, "there was no violation of foreign airspace, as the term is defined and generally understood, by PIA flight PK-719/040704.

"Changes were made in PIA schedule effective May 23, 2004 and PIA has operated three subsequent flights on this sector via Russian Airspace", he added. However, the parliamentary secretary said, Russian civil aviation authorities denied over-flying permission to this particular flight, adding, as such, it was routed via Istanbul as a contingency plan before entering the Russian airspace.

He also pointed out that most of the West-bound PIA flights from Lahore/Islamabad are operated via Russian airspace. Answering a supplementary question raised by Khalid Iqbal Memon, Tanvir Hussain said, PIA had been advised to operate flights at small airports in Sindh, particularly Sehwan Sharif, keeping in view the commercial viability, to facilitate the passengers of these areas.

Replying to another supplementary question raised by Farid Paracha, he said, the PIA had a proper procedure to hold inquiries of tyre burst and fire incidents and the reports of inquiries were to be submitted within 15 days of any such incident. -APP