The Snow Will Melt

Zeemax and all else,
Do you know the Biblical Incident of "who will cast the first stone"

Re: # 70

Khuda aap ko muaf farmaaye, aur tamaam namazaiN ada karnay ki taufeeq aur hidayat day. Ameen, khhuuupphhhheeeeww (can you feel the ruhani breeze in your giraybaaN?)

Do smile more often.

Peace.

Re: # 71

Siddiqui sahib! Of course I remember your comment ("This is wonderful/entertaining writing. Enjoyed this piece to the very uncovered end.").

These days I'm into designer stuff: my shirt is tucked into the rear of the trousers because the shirt is torn. From the front the shirt hangs out because there's some technical flaw with the designer fly which must remain undone!

Despite these minor annoyances in such troubled times, I'm glad to report that nobody seems suspicious!

Peace.

RE: Tahir #58...

Look Ma, No Pants!

Remember?

Dhuhr? Tahir saab aap kab say Arbi bun gaye hein? Hamare zamane mein to Zuhr ki namaaz hoti thi. Maaf ki jiya ga, salat. Aur Ramadan? Aur Allahhafiz? Mein to ab tuk Khudhafiz hi kehta hoon.

;-)

Re: # 66

Dear Cinema Scope,

She must have been torn between two lovers: the Ruh and Iblees.

Even the coloured ladies of the Red District (I am told by those who've witnessed this miracle) offer Fajr (morning prayers) regularly, but in the evenings they're at it again. If only they'd remember that there's Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, and Isha after Fajr!

Thanks for laying bare your inner self.

Its nice to know that you started your career with an airline that taught Singapore, Malta, and Emirates how to fly. Those you left behind weeping have all gone old.

Peace indeed.

... sorry I thought that post was addressed to me.

Regards.

#64 Posted by tahir.

Look Tahir Saheb, this post hurt me. You took me wrong. I started my career with PIA. It was the best airline in the world, and it still can be.

But air hostesses are the same all over the world, it's not only PIA. I mean, what else does one do on layovers but get laid?

#63 Posted by slyder,

There was once when I asked this girl to my room, and she said "acha ... Namaz parh kar aati hoon'.

#62 Posted by tahir,

No offense, but have you ever been inside 'Rock Castle'? I mean inside ... in the air hostess rooms ... not just honking at the gate begging the chowkidar to page your favorite air hostess.

Peace. Absolutely. I agree.

Re: # 63

Honestly, decent folks like you never travel by PIA. It's the uneducated poor (who are afraid of asking for ten million eatables from fair blondes of western airlines) who remain the bread and butter of the airline who've strongly condemned.

Stepping on the ones you love, is this your favourite pastime? If you knew how people are employed in Asian countries, what salaries they get, and how much work they're expected to do, you would sympathise and never criticise.

Even the best make mistakes, forget, or fall asleep at the wheel. If all the other trades in the world were as tightly regulated as commercial aviation is, we'd have a lot less non-sense today. People in aviation get grounded, depend on their medical fitness and professional abilities, and lose licences all the time. They really PAY if they commit mistakes, and worse, they don't have parachutes or after-burners like fighter planes do!

PIA is totally lenient when it comes to foul-mouthed, rowdy, over-demanding passengers (the types who'd probably stick elbows into their own sisters' buttocks if they passed them by!).

On which other airline can one make a mess of the airplane, steal cutlery, ruin entertainment systems, and insist on yelling, Don't you know who I am?

Are you from the FAA, do you work as a consultant to the EU, are you a disgruntled ATCO who still hasn't been able to get in PIA? What are you SLY-DER.

Now the unfortunate ones who you say are 'picked up' always come from dubious backgrounds, and in worse places do they eventually wind up. Perhaps they don't have a choice in a world where knights don't move about in shining armour but rather pimp around on 50cc bikes in search of 'scores'.

I guess you've been taught to refer to your dealing with the fair sex as 'scoring it'. Look around, there may be worse creatures in your workplace, office, school, neighbourhood, or circle of friends.

Unless you dismantle your sexist scoreboard, each of your glorious sixers will end up as a naught.

Howzat!!??

And peace.

PIA's crew is probably the most pathetic in the world. The cabin crew, both male and female, have beards, mustaches, pot bellies and huge butts. The number 2 perfume won't mask their bad BO and they haven't heard that mints have been invented. The pilots are probably the most poorly trained and managed other than a few West African airlines. They smoke on board, even in airspaces where smoking is not allowed, and have the skills of bus drivers on Mandi Bhau din - Phalia route. I recall PIA belly landed a 747 in Islamabad in the 80s because the crew forgot to lower the wheels! The 3 idiots in the cockpit were probably busy puffing on their Wills ;)

The PIA 'Ho'-stesses were picked up from the AP Hotel on 50 CC mopeds and rickshaws -- so no big deal if you scored some.

Re: # 61

Dear ZeeMax,

You said: If you're a batch mate of Dabbu's, we may even have met or shared some air hostesses :)

I say:
Dabbu was an entirely different bird when he spoke about females unrelated to him, as most men often do, but then in 1989 he was young.

Most people, usually not linked to the airlines, insist on painting a picture whose shades I can clearly see in your statement. Its not a healthy sign unless you've just turned seventeen.

How can I remember meeting you when your name sounds like a cinema projection technology? As for your implication that we might have had 'fun' sharing females with one another, that has utterly ruined my impression about you. I hope women with integrity (there are plenty in PIA and at CHOWK) will take up the issue with you from now on.

You may choose to live with whatever impression you might have about me.

Peace (to the max).

#59 Dear tahir,

Whatever I said is firsthand ... and certainly not from clerks of PALPA or newspapers.

If you're a batch mate of Dabbu's, we may even have met or shared some air hostesses :)

Nothing of the incident can be verified of-course.

Re: # 52

What Bhutto and Ayub did is known, we don't need sites like http://www.pakdef.info/pakmilitary/airforce/index.html

What we did in 1971 is also known. 'We don't need no education/we don't need no thought control' (excuse me Pink Floyd).

Hey dictator, leave them kids alone (that's my own line! like it?)

Peace.

Re: # 56

Dear ZeeMax,

Although you have not questioned me, excuse me for the interruption.

If Riffat Yasmin indeed says this, I can ask her just for your satisfaction. If she thinks that is true, then the theory must be supported by some evidence. What prompted her to say that? Did you hear it from her, or read it in the newspapers?

As for 'PALPA people', are you referring to the office staff or the professional pilots? Their majority does NOT believe in the widow's story; perhaps the cabin crew do, and whose leader Riffat later became.

Until we get to some verifiable statements, peace...

Re: # 53

Dear Mr. Siddiqui,

I'm sorry I don't know what you're implying by asking me to 'keep my trousers on or else mama would feel offended'.
Please elaborate.

One must speak the truth not to please oneself or others but to cherish this virtue given by God to everyone; some burry it and some polish it to near perfection. Take your pick.

As for what BB took to her grave, her family should rejoice since she left more than a pearly set of teeth behind for burial, becasue that's what Ijaz-ul-Haq must live with forever.

Peace.

Peace.

Re: # 50
You said:
IF as you imply the Army shot the plane down, intentionally or acidentally....

I say:
Dear, where do I say that the Army shot it down?
Now get rid of that Hunza Water please!

You said:
If you had asked her, she'd have muttered something about bad weather or pilot error or the Hand of God or something. Since she brought it up while sipping coffee, it was probably in the way of making conversation and asking about something she was mildly interested in.

I say:
My poem asked AND told her AND questioned her. She did what she did, and wrote what she wrote. I knew, she knew, and through us, you know a thing or two now! Aren't you happy I revealed some of what you did not know?

If we can't get our pre-'47'65/'71 history right why expect this F-27 to do wonders for our foreign policy?

Let's move on now to something else. It'll take eons for our kind of snow to melt.

Peace.

fuzair,

If Dabbu's wife, the air hostess (no name) who later became the leader of the Cabin Crew Union says so, I will give it due weight.

Besides most of the PALPA people think so as well.

The army at that time had a very little anti aircraft presence in the area. In those days there were no SAMS in the area. Having been a mountaineer and shuttled many times on these Fokkers I know for sure that in the prescribed funnel, there are no military installations. The line of control and Siachin are a considerable distance away and unlikely to be violated unless the aircraft flies off course. One of my students lost his entire family in the crash. He was from Gilgit and later joined the army.
Lets be carefuk before killing Cicero for his bad verses.

Re: # 50
Mr Fuzair, I am not insisting that army shot it down...
That we will only know with time....
But it is a plausible explanation....
And just because some one advances it....
does not mean that he suffers from "typical" conspiracy theory mindset....
You have actually likened it with Elvis bing alive example....
Implying that you think that those who have a different viewpoint are some kind of lunatic idiots....

Tahir Sahib,

aap apni patloon pehnay rakhain warna Validah naraaz hon gi.

I wonder what other secrets BB took to her grave?

Ras

Ijaz,

According to Fricker, http://www.pakdef.info/pakmilitary/airforce/index.html, who is the PAF's quasi-official historian, the Iranian planes went to the PaF, not the PA.

Ijaz,

I think you might be mistaken here. I've never heard of PA C130s; if they were transferred from Iran in the 1970s, they'd have gone to the PAF. Given the difficulty we had as children hitching a ride on the C130s, I'm sure that none of them were PA ones!

No, Tahir Sahib, I got your subtle point but I don't think you are correct. IF as you imply the Army shot the plane down, intentionally or acidentally, the last thing BB would have done is to have brought up the topic. If you had asked her, she'd have muttered something about bad weather or pilot error or the Hand of God or something. Since she brought it up while sipping coffee, it was probably in the way of making conversation and asking about something she was mildly interested in. If the Army had shot it down AND she brought up the topic, why keep quiet afterward? Why not say so? Or at least make a shooting motion with her hand and smile enigmatically?

If the plane had been shot down by the Indians, why wouldn't the Pakistanis have trumpeted it as loundly as we could have? It would have been a great propaganda coup for us. Even if we had no evidence to show it was the Indians but we thought it was, a lack of evidence wouldn't have stopped us from blaming them.

If, as friend Skeptical and Zeemax insist, it was shot down by the Army, which unit shot it down? Where was it stationed? Did they use a Stinger? Or something else? Under what circumstances did they mistake it for an Indian? Presumably it approached from the Pakistani side, although the valleys and units are quite intercrossed so it could have possibly approached from the Indian side

Given the number of flights I was booked on that were cancelled because of bad weather, why rule out the most likely cause? I'm sorry but your hypothesis makes no sense at all.

Tahir,
I also hope you read between my lines too.

Re: # 46
Because the PAF has the complete maintainance system, it operates these aircrafts. They belong to the army. They were donated in the days when Shah was alive and Iranians were retrofitting M47 Tanks.

Re: # 44

Are you serious FuzAir? You missed the subtle point I made in the story to which you are interacting now: If B.B. could not or did not wish to answer me, who else would?

THIS, my friend, should have been dug out by you in the first read! No problemo; go and read it again, piece by piece!

Peace.

Ijaz,

Do you mean they are dedicated to Army use, i.e., the SSG or that they actually belong to the Army? If the latter, why not just hand them over to Army Aviation? It operates a hundred plus fixed wing aircraft (Mashaak and its variants) plus a couple of larger ones as well.

Fuzair,
Let me correct you here. All C130s, That Pakistan bought from Iran belong to the army but are operated by PAF.

Tahir,
I was the first to comment on your lovely writing. You said a lot without saying anything. After Nazar, you are the second PIA Person I enjoy reading on chowk.
Cheerios

All C-130s belong to the PAF; the Army has no planes other than the Mashaak and maybe a Fokker or something of that sort in their VIP flight section. Unless the COAS is actually CMLA, the PAF tends to ignore the Army and always looks down upon it as idiots.

I have never mindlessly defended the Army. If you actually read my posts, I am very critical of Army generals and the rather poor level of Army officers in general: "culture of mediocrity" ring a belll?

No one has actually answered my substantive questions: see post #28. Which unit shot it down and how?

Dear reader friends, here's Lucy (no, Hillary):

"Put this on the ground! I left my sunglasses in the limo. I need those sunglasses. We need to go back!"
– From the book "Dereliction of Duty" p. 71-72 - (Hillary to Marine One helicopter pilot to turn back while en route to Air Force One.)

My comment: It is not our own begums who have done it to the PAF, the foreign ladies are no less!

#2 Posted by Skeptical

... are unanimous that ill fated plane owed its ill fate to Pak army....
That we accidentally shot our own plane......

This is the theory believed inside PIA pilot circles as well ... though in hushed tones.

Re: # 38

Thanks Miss Dar,
Why must we think of categories? To think out of the box is supreme, the rest is indoctrination.
Peace

Re: # 37

Thanks Mr. Kapadia. When the time comes and you truly deserve it, I will defend you.

Peace.

Re: # 35

You said:
I thought most of the C130s are in the amry ‘s possession and not of PAF. Did the army refuse too?

I say:
Is there really a difference between the ownership?
Now only if grown men would call a spade--well, a spade!

You see, a man would readily murder another if the Prophet's name was involved in blasphemy, but if jokes were narrated about God, both would laugh together! Who deserves greater reverence?

Similarly, if two institutions decide that nobody has the right to ask--let alone criticise--them, then where will we wind up if the income tax, police and the customs demand the same privilege?

I'm hopeful about FuzAir, not worried now!

Peace

Quite moving. However I am not sure if it can be categorised as anything other than a personal reminisce. Not that there is anything wrong with that...

In criticizing Tahir for this moving piece. We are all forgetting that some of the people who died in that cockpit were his friends. I have visited the northern areas on occasion and flown to shangrila as well in a thrill ride of a plane flight. True i have never heard this story either... but that does not mean it cannot be true. Can we all just be a little more sensitive here??? Or should we always have to indulge in name calling and obscenities to get our point across!!

Please open yr minds...

Re: # 34
Mr fuzair may be you were having Hunza water while that theory was being narrated to you.....
The thing is my friend just because we do not believe the "Pak" army version of the story, does that mean that we think that it was a grand conspiracy!!!!!
Why relate to obnoxious kind of anologies like
Elvis being alive......
If some one doubts army's version it does not mean that they belong to that category of people who think that 9/11 was done by USA or 18th October blast by BB herself and everything is not what it seems group....
Pak army frankly has never been credible.....

#33 Posted by tahir

“4) The Air Force—having conducted only a hurried high altitude survey—had expressed its inability to spare C-130s or helicopters for a closer look. (the usual foot-dragging)"

This is not foot dragging. This sheer callousness. There were forty people on board and the PAF could not spare a C-130?

I thought most of the C130s are in the amry ‘s possession and not of PAF. Did the army refuse too?

Don’t worry about Fuzair. Whenever he hears something against the Pak army, his head turns Fuzzy. At that time people call him Fuzzy head. He is having his Fuzzy moments on your board. He would gain sanity if you discuss anything with him except the army…He is a true groupie!

OK, peace, salaam, shalom, etc.

Dear Skeptical,

I lived and worked in Gilgit for a while a loooooong time ago and memories fade but I do remember the Kashgar Inn and having their excellent Kashgari Palao and Mantos. I also remember going to the Serena in winter to watch movies and have dinner there. And watching polo at the Aga Khan Polo Ground. And driving from Gilgit to Pindi in summer and winter. And celebrating Nauroz with some excellent Hunza Water just south of Soust (blanking on the name now; near a a glacier and a small lake, IIRC). All this made a nice break from our normal routine. But, honestly, I do not remember the shot down plane theory.

Re: # 31

Skeptical dear, let FuzAir breathe!

Break it up boys! Kiss each other (no..no..not on the lips!) and move on!

Peace.

Re: # 28

Dear Fuzai-R,

These are the headlines:

1) It was not until the late afternoon that search and rescue operations commenced. (late lateefs as usual)

2) The Fokker, unintentionally or otherwise, flew off-course into the prohibited Indian airspace. (whatever the reason)

3) The Indians, having warned the Pakistanis not to commit airspace violations, shot the plane down. (who wanted another war?)

4) The Air Force—having conducted only a hurried high altitude survey—had expressed its inability to spare C-130s or helicopters for a closer look. (the usual foot-dragging)

5) A failed attempt to hijack the aircraft to India had resulted in an explosive scuffle on board. (remember the PanAm B747 commando action in Karachi in 1986?)

Please note that I never wrote that the Army or the PAF shot it down!

PIA is not perfect. Don't forget that 1988 Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 that looked like a convertible sports car when it landed after encountering multiple failures (top of the fuselage missing, people sucked out at 20,000').

Investigators and agencies are human too, and they tow the line once it is intentionally drawn for them. Remember Hans Blix (chief weapons' inspector in Iraq) who spoke the truth eventually?

To sum it up, B.B. lived and died knowing the truth of the matter.

Peace brother.

Re: # 29
Mr fuzair, I do not know why you have made it a matter of ego here.....
If you have really lived in Northern Area for any length of time you must have come across some thing....Frankly I doubt that besides visiting there once or twice you have actually lived there.....though u know that besides c 130 and foker, normal passenger aircrafts could not land there.....
By the way, the theory was never that PAF plane shot it...
It was the air defence system and its missile...(that is why I say that I doubt that u have even been there....)
Problem is that you think that it is "typical Pakistani" mentality of linking everything with a grand conspiracy....CIA, KGB blah blah....
You make fun of Tahir thinking that he suffers from same paranoia
Frankly dear...
he has a point......
I have even talked to army personnel who at that time were posted there....and the silence was deafening......
Frankly this is no "conspiracy theory" ...
when there is smoke-there is fire.....
That is all......

Re: # 28 One more violation of aviation code is that that all commercial passenger planes must be equipped with a blackbox. All blackboxes carry an electronic beacon that pin points the crash site.

So either PIA was in violation of this code, or not. If it wasn't then location of plane is deliberately kept hidden to avoid insurance costs. And if PIA was in violation then it was liable to pay what it was sued to pay.

Oh, I just remembered; wasn't there a Haji somebody or the other on the flight? Or was he an Ismaili? Owned a big shop in Gilgit Bazaar? Was involved in the NAs independence movement? That would explain why the plane had to be shot down! Case closed!

I only responded in kind to Mr. Tahir, just raising the bet, when he suggested I stop listening to drunkards and imbibe the truth directly from him. So, Mr. Tahir, you've never heard-of or seen PIA pilots do anything remotely unprofessional? Sticking to the Gilgit-Pindi route, nothing unprofessional of any sort has ever happened on that route? I think Urstruly has just shown that PIA deliberately violated international flight conventions.

In my time in the NAs, I never heard the story of the Army shooting down the Fokker. Has anyone actually looked at the PIA flight route and seen where on this route was there an Army unit that could have shot the plane down? Presumably it would have to be one equipped with Stingers or some other Manpad that would have to be the guilty party.

Or was the plane flying so low that a G3 or an LMG shot it down? In that case, why wasn't the wreckage found? Did the Army shoot an entire company of soldiers to cover up the crime? No one talked?

Did the PAF shoot it down? If so, which fighter? Surely there couldn't have been that many PAF planes in the air at the same time; they would have been easily accounted for. Couldn't have been shot down by accident since the pilot would have gotten a good visual on the plane and realized it was a Fokker and not and IAF spy plane.

The PIA flight route is a well known one. The plane's wreckage would have to be on the flight path somewhere. Unless of course the pilot went off the route to do some sightseeing and the wreckage is lying in some unmapped valley somewhere. I am sure there are people in the NAs who firmly believe that the Army shot the plane down; just as there are people in the US who believe that Elvis is alive in a Federal Witness Protection Program or abducted by space aliens.

Re: # 26

You've actually read the poem in prose my friend!

Mohtarma's lines and autograph deserve a better showcase than this 'where paths meet' site! I hate to disappoint you but I've thought long and hard over this.

Another time, another place perhaps...

Peace

Tahir,

I think it would be appropriate to post the poem here in the interacts as well. As a matter of fact it should have been a part of the article.

Re: # 22

Dear Skeptical,

Thanks for the kind words and the free advice. I hope that sensible readers will drive the devils away from this site. I only have two hands you know!

Peace.

Re: # 23
I agree.....

This is no overrated conspiracy theory....
There is a lot of reality in it.....

Re: # 22

Sure there is a conspiracy behind the disappearance of this aircraft. What turned this conspiracy into an act of criminality is the fact that someone sued PIA for 100s of millions of rupees for negligence. Since, government (read fouj) controls everything in the country, from God to cricket, a lawsuit such as this would have set a bad precident. The riff riff would have found power to hold government accountable for its negligence and incompetence. For a cruppt, pro-western, oppressive ruling elite this is a nightmare. In a country where whole judiciary is fired at whim, it is just child play to "mitti pao" on such incidences where a piddley little Fokker goes down.

Dear Tahir

You dont have to answer all those stupid comments.....
People who dont know anything are making fun of you...
The truth is that it was a very moving piece...
As I have told you earlier I have worked in Norhtern Areas for a long time....
There it was an established theory that we accidently shot our own plane....
And then the gravity of this mistake had to be kept hidden....
For all those who think that this is a "conspiracy" theory like 9/11 being orchesterd by USA itself, or BB's death by Mr Zardari....
Think again.....
Mr Tahir has a point here and it is very convincing....
Please visit northeren areas and listen....
You would be surprised.....

Re: # 18

Dear Ras Sahib(RAS: short for what name?),

My father went one step further; he addressed those he loved as Qiblah-o-Ka'ba! Even the magnetic north is not stationary; they say it moves!

I did leave a reply at: http://www.chowk.com/interacts/13221

Again, you've been there with me since the year of our (?) lord 2000. Thanks for the flowers.

My interacts OTOH are what (not entertaining)? Please complete your sentence to obtain ten out of ten.

Huzoor, hamay dar hay kay nechay say dekhney walay kahiN hamaray andar jhaNkna mat shuru' kar daiN!

Keep smiling.

Re: # 17

Thanks very much for understanding the subtlties of what is said between the lines! Most have focussed on entirely different things!

Good men must never feel afraid. As for the poor abusive interactor, we need more gentle-men to come forward to clean up the mess that InterAct has become?

Re: # 14 & 15

Dear Yours Truly,

I remember you from Chaanga Maanga days!

The readers have already written part-2 of this article; I had to edit many things since one cannot write everything in a single article.

As for the vanished widow, the magicians started with making rabbits vanish in metal helmets, now whole populations can meet the same fate.

Billy was in a hurry to head back to Karachi after completing his Northern Area Hours; God had other plans.

Thanks and peace to you.

Tahir Qibla,

Aap kay niche aur bhi bahut saray likhnay waalay moujood hain.

I like your writing style period. Very entertaining!

Your interacts OTOH.....

Tahir,

very interesting piece.

I enjoyed all the subtle connections.

I am also surprised at the tone of the interaction with "how stupid are you? " from one of the interactors...

urstruly,

when are you going to write a new piece?

Hopefully something less mullah oriented and more general life oriented...

I ahve shopped at Billy's supermarket in Karachi, one that was at the cusp of Akhtar colony and perhaps phase 5 of Aktar colony. I also remember meeting "the owner" since he was an acquaintance of my uncle. But now I cannot put face on the name, and didn't even know that he was one of the crash victims. This is indeed a small world.

I remeber that incident. One of the reasons the plane could not be located was that PIA violated the international aviation standard regarding the planes that fly over snow capped frozen zones. One of the requirements of this standard is that the rudder, fuselage, and wings all must have bright orange marking and spots on the top surface, so that if plane crashes in the snow zone, it could be located. If memory serves me right, one of the widow of the crash victims sued PIA for violating this standard, for millions of rupees. The PIA and its insurance company took the position that since remains of the plane were not found, therefore, there is a reasonable doubt that crash may not have happened. The kicking and screaming widow refused to accept the standard 100k compensation and word has it that she was made to disappear by pakistani intelkligence agencies.

Re: # 11

What do you think they wish you to know through those lovely entertaining movies? The ideas are floated years in advance to 'prepare' the sheeple (people who are sheep-like)!

Dude?! I know only doodh. Whatever happened to sir, mister, janab, huzoor etc.?

Peace (om shanti om; now is'nt that the name of a movie?)

Re: # 10

You said:
In any case, just how stupid are you?

I think you are pretty indicative of the abysmal standards of PIA if you had any position of responsibility in it.

I say:

What school did you go to? Is this the way you've been taught to address those who make you want to read a line or two? Let's see you become a writer Fuz Air!

And what kind of responsibility do you have in life? Not flying spy missions over us I hope?

Peace

It was impossible to believe that none of the spy satellites recorded the accident or that satellite photos were unavailable to help locate the survivors.


dude..you've been watching too many movies..or too many DVDs of 24.

Re: Tahir #6,

Was referring specifically to the missing PIA Fokker, not to all hijacking/crashes/shooting-downs worldwide; I thought the context should be clear to anyone.

It was the PIA Station Manager (or whatever his exact title was) in Gilgit who told me about these two theories. I was in his office with a good friend of mine who knew him really well; trying to get seats for Pindi. Why would he make this up?

In any case, just how stupid are you? If you actually read my post I said, "this one is a bit too much even for me to believe." Do you not understand this? I said these were two theories that I had heard, not what I think actually happened.

On the Pindi-Gilgit flight I myself have seen the pilot's two teenage nephews go up to the cockpit area, the copilot leave and one of them sit in his seat for a few minutes. Yeah, tell me more crap about PIA's professionalism. Up to about the early 1970s I've heard that PIA was a really good airline and then Bhutto and Zia buggered it good. In Zia's time he actually improved it by the wholesale sacking of PIA staff but all these actions are really minimal and temporary improvements at best.

Haven't you heard the one about the pilot who was so drunk he tried to land on the Pindi-Isl highway instead of Isl airport? OR was this also made up?

In any case, I have a very low opinion of PAF professional behavior as well, especially of the behavior of Begum Sahibas like Mrs. Air Chief Marshal Shamim. If you had actually understood my post, you will have seen that I did say something about the behavior of our Begum Sahibas...

I think you are pretty indicative of the abysmal standards of PIA if you had any position of responsibility in it.

As far as the pilots go, one of them was a very senior pilot named Taj. Lets leave the rest of the name out; either you know who he is or you don't.

Re: # 6

You said:
The other theory is that the pilot let someone inexperienced take the controls (friend, relative, someone) and that person crashed the plane. While the unprofessionalism of some (many?) PIA pilots is legendary, this one is a bit too much even for me to believe.

And I say:

PIA is not a Russian airline where a father let his son crash a jet. True, men makes mistakes and often pay with their lives, but which drunkard has narrated to you the legends of PIA pilots?

It might be more useful to investigate how our C-130s are misused by begums who sometimes forget their purses! Any honest Shaheen out there, anyone , please ....?

Re: # 6

You said:
I've never heard of a failed hijack attempt theory or an accidental shooting down theory.

But I say:
There are plenty! Korean Airlines 747 (KL 007 from Anchorage to Alaska on On September 1, 1983)was made to look like an accident. It was not. Read this (and more on your own): http://www.kimsoft.com/korea/kal-007.htm

And what about the Egypt Air Flight 990 that plunged into the Atlantic on 31 October (Halloween scare!?) 1999: http://www.albalagh.net/current_affairs/egypt_crash.shtml

Know the world for what it is, not what it seems!

Re: # 3
Dear Veeresh,
Please read this again and TRY to understand it:

Those who perished with the ‘light of truth’ left behind silent sons who chose not to reveal the ‘hidden hand’ behind the episode; the price that grown men sometimes pay to become federal ministers.

The reference to Zia's crash leads to THIS! Now find out from those who know who these gentlemen are!

Happy hunting.

I've flown on the Rawalpindi-Gilgit route many times as I worked in Gilgit for a while. It is really quite a spectacular flight. The mountains are much higher than the Fokker's max ceiling IIRC. In addition, the Gilgit runway used to be (don't know if it still is or not) a very short one and, especially in summer, payload was very limited. The mullahs wouldn't allow the govt to demolish an illegally constructed masjid at the end of the runway and let it accomodate jets. In summer on a hot day I've seen the pilot abort the takeoff at the last minute and return to offload passengers and luggage to lighten the load and then takeoff. Of course, the Begum Sahiba of the Admninistrator NAs or the GoC or some PIA bigshot with her friends and family and their 18 overweight suitcases are never removed. It is always some unconnected schmuck who got bumped.

Despite the runways short length, it was long enough to take C-130s as I've flown in those from Gilgit to Pindi as well.

In any case, I've never heard of a failed hijack attempt theory or an accidental shooting down theory. The two that I've heard are very different. First one is that the plane was never found because it went off course to do some unscheduled sightseeing. If there were friends/relatives of PIA personnel (or govt big shots) on board, it wasn't unheard of for flights to take a slight detour to get a really good view of some major peak. While doing this the plane crashed and that is why it was never found since it was many, many miles off-course. The other theory is that the pilot let someone inexperienced take the controls (friend, relative, someone) and that person crashed the plane. While the unprofessionalism of some (many?) PIA pilots is legendary, this one is a bit too much even for me to believe.

As Veeresh has pointed out, the most logical answer is that it is lying where it crashed: no explosion, no gunfights, no Stinger that took it down; probably just bad weather and/or pilot error.

However, we Pakistanis have never let the truth stand in the way of a really good conspiracy theory; the more unbelievable, the better.

The snow will most definitely melt to give up its secrets.

It might be doing so on a most recent tragedy



Benezair to be exhumed!

Musharuf wants the body out and a proper autopsy carried out so that people find out how she died.

Speaking to Newsweek magazine Pakistan President Pervez Mushraff was quoted as saying that he would want to call for the exhumation of former Pak Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s body and would want to lay to rest all allegations of government's involvement in Bhutto's assassination. However, he has ruled out ordering a post-mortem without the agreement of Bhutto's family.




go here to find the interview on video

http://www.findinternettv.com/Video,item,3574946106.aspx

i remember this crash.an officer i knew lost his wife and two sons in that crash.he was trekking for many years in the Northern Areas to find his family I was told.

An AN-12 of the IAF took off for Leh on 07feb'68, and had to turn back due to bad weather over J&K, and then went delayed. Missing for almost 35 years (except for one report in 1987) many relatives believed that the aircraft had been taken to Pakistan. Then in 2003, one dead body with uniform and documents intact was found, after which more were located as well as parts of the aircraft.

Likewise, the airplane "Stardust" went adrift in the Andes, and the glacier finally returned the aircraft and the bodies after 50 years.

I could not understand the reference to Zia's plane crash, though.

I have worked in Northern areas with an NGO......
All the people there are unanimous that ill fated plane owed its ill fate to Pak army....
That we accidentally shot our own plane......
Snow will never melt.....
because it is hiding a hedious crime....

Zubair was my colleague from school days. A sort of ruffian. So was Amer Kemal my class mate. Another classfellow Imran Joined the PAF and then PIA.
I saw Shamshad frequently in Quetta in the late 80s/early 90s, usually in company of other cabin crew and friends in a house on Ordinance Road. When I heard of the tagedy, I said to myself. Does PIA have some policy. Maybe I am wrong.

A student of mine told me that out of the Blue, he saw this wreckage in a dream and that all were well living in a habitat, thinking they were in another world.

May the snow melt