THIS is apropos of S. Masood Hasan’s letter (Oct 25). We have all along been told that the ill-fated Bhoja aircraft was fully airworthy and the pilot instead of going round decided to land in the bad weather when he lost control and crashed the aircraft.

This was, therefore, taken as a pilot error and the matter rested there so far.

But Mr Hasan has now come out with an startling new story that in fact the ‘plane, with technical defects, flew out on April 20 from Karachi without the faults being checked and removed although competent engineers were available and without real airworthiness certification.”

These are very serious allegations against the Bhoja Air and worse still against the Civil Aviation Authority.

The Bhoja Air and the Civil Aviation Authority must, therefore, clarify their positions because if the allegations are true, then the airline may be liable for higher limit of compensation than Rs5 million under the Carriage by Air Act, 2012.

Not only that the Civil Aviation Authority may also become liable for limitless damages because the compensation regime under the said Act applies only to passengers and airline and not the Civil Aviation Authority which, I understand, has obtained no insurance to cover their negligence, if any.

Aside from the above, such an allegation tends to unnecessarily create a false hope among the claimants to go for the two birds in the bush instead of having one in hand.

S.M. ANWAR Karachi