THIS is apropos of the news report ‘Call to make air crash probe reports public’ (Jan 27). PALPA did well to organise a seminar to disseminate information about aviation. But other airlines, and especially the Civil Aviation Authority, should have also been invited to the seminar.

The CAA has been unduly castigated by some speakers. I hold no brief for the CAA but being a student of air law and having headed the legal department of the CAA for 10 years, I feel it necessary to clarify certain points raised in the seminar, particularly about the investigation and non-publication of air crash reports.

Under our law (CA Rules 1994), the director-general of the CAA is primarily responsible for securing wreckage of a crashed aircraft in Pakistan and hold a proper investigation for which they ought to, and I believe, have necessary wherewithal.

Above the DG is the federal government (ministry of defence) which can take over the investigation whenever considered necessary.

The federal government may constitute an independent board of such competent persons as considered necessary.  Whether the federal government has discharged this duty in the Airblue or other crash is not known.

If not, it is they and not the CAA who have to explain whether a thorough investigation by qualified and competent persons has been carried out or not. As regards publication of the air crash probe report, Rule 281 of CA Rules authorises the DGCAA, ‘in consultation’ with the federal government, whether to publish the report in full or partially.

Consultation obviously means seeking their approval. Again it is the federal government which is to be questioned for not publishing the report, or scrap the legal provision about secrecy which keeps the affected families wondering about the cause of the death of their loved ones and what measures were being taken to avoid repetition of such tragedies. S.M.

ANWAR Karachi