EDITORIAL (July 29 2010): The tragic crash of an Air-Blue Islamabad-bound flight from Karachi with 152 people on board into Islamabad's Margalla hills has left many questions unanswered, the foremost being: why was the plane allowed to land when an earlier flight was reportedly refused landing? Secondly, the pilot is said to have violated the laid-down procedural parameters for landing, and made a larger detour than normally done.

Was it because of the immediate conditions, including inclement weather, that forced the pilot to violate the laid-down procedures? Even the direction of the plane's arrival is said to have been different from the one normally followed by planes landing at Islamabad airport. The tragic crash has also brought under sharp focus the working conditions of pilots. Re-employed by private airlines on the basis of their vast experience, they are often required to put in 12-hour duty, which should not exceed 8 to 10 hours.

Although, modern planes, in service of public and private sector airlines, are equipped with high-tech gadgets, long hours of flying often contributes to the pilot error, that has been adjudged as one of the three causes of air crashes, with the other two being technical fault and bad weather. Airbus pilot Pervaiz Iqbal Chaudhry is said to have piloted another plane a few hours before being asked to take the ill-fated flight to Islamabad.

Poor weather, perceived negligence of the control tower to allow a rainy landing to a seemingly tired pilot who had joined this private airline in 2008 after retirement are apparently the factors that contributed to precipitating the tragedy. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar has said that the government does not suspect terrorism. The tragedy has exposed a disturbing lack of co-ordination among various civil organisations involved in the rescue effort. They have apparently been pursuing their own strategies and operations, with the result that it was very late in the day when it was announced that there were no survivors.

The low level of disaster management in Pakistan, first exposed in the initial post-2005 earthquake days, though much improved since then, needs to be further improved by ensuring greater co-ordination among various agencies. The raging inferno had not been brought under control till writing of these lines. A better aerial fire-fighting equipment and methodology could possibly have helped save if not the passengers' lives, at least the bodies from total burning. Secondly, the working conditions of contract pilots need to be appreciably improved by airlines.

Thirdly, re-employment of retired pilots is credible indicator of there being an acute paucity of trained, competent younger pilots - a problem that needs to be addressed by enhancing the level of professional training being imparted to trainee pilots. And lastly, a commission of inquiry headed by judge of superior judiciary should be appointed not only to determine causes of this tragedy, but also to issue guidelines for improvement of the sector.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2010