ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the investigating officers concerned to complete their probe into the April 20, 2012 Bhoja Air plane crash within six weeks and file challan in a trial court.

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, which had taken up a case relating to payment of compensation to the affected families of the Airblue and Bhoja Air crashes, ordered the courts concerned to decide in a month bail matters of those named as accused in the Bhoja Air crash.

Additional Attorney General Nayyar Abbas Rizvi informed the court that all the 120 affected families and seven crew members in the Bhoja Air crash had been paid compensation, except one family that had gone into litigation.

All 127 passengers and crew members on board ill-fated plane were killed on April 20, 2012

All the unfortunate 127 passengers and crew members on board BH-213 were killed when the plane coming to Islamabad from Karachi crashed near the Benazir Bhutto International Airport on April 20, 2012. The airline, which had started its operations in 1993, had to suspend them in 2000 due to the crash and financial constraints.

Likewise, 136 families of the July 28, 2010 Airblue plane crash have been compensated, except 10 families. The compensation cheques of Rs5 million each have been deposited with the SC registrar.

The court observed that the Airblue management had been told to deposit the compensation funds with the registrar, but it only deposited cheques, regretting that the management kept the money with it and earned mark-up on it.

The court then sought compensatory cheques to be cashed out and said the money should be invested in a profitable scheme. It also ordered that the civil cases be heard within three months after the summer vacations.

The chief justice imposed a fine of Rs50,000 on Airblue for not submitting its response to the court on time. He observed that it was the right of the affected families to claim compensation.

During the proceedings, families of the victims informed the court that they were willing to accept the compensation, but the matter was also pending before civil courts.

The counsel for Pakistan International Airlines informed the court that all the victims’ families had been compensated, except one that had filed a lawsuit against the national flag carrier.

Meanwhile, a 2013 report by a judicial commission appointed on the directive of the Islamabad High Court, which become part of the Supreme Court hearing, had blamed multiple factors for the flight BH-213 crash in April 2012, including improper training of the pilots to fly the specific jet as well as the regulator’s oversight.

The 138-page report was based on multiple interviews of officials of the airline, Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), law enforcement agencies and an analysis of relevant documents, including an official investigation report on the crash.

The commission noted that the operator Bhoja Air, regulator CAA, flight crew and the airline had fallen short on the tasks attributed to them on a number of counts. The captain’s insistence on flying through a thunderstorm and the ‘abnormal behaviour’ of the airplane also contributed to the crash.

Multiple discrepancies were found on part of the airline. For instance, two months before the crash, a CAA officer informed his superiors that the airline was ‘physically bankrupt’ with a negative equity of Rs8.1 million.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2018