Air crash investigations

• Prematurely blaming the pilot seems like trying to save others

Instead of investigating the Karachi air tragedy with a view to fixing responsibility, and perhaps equally important, fixing on measures to prevent a recurrence, it seems that a trail of innuendoes and leaks is being laid that will place the blame on the dead pilot. The purpose is not to improve for the future, but to ensure that the two institutions involved, PIA and the Civil Aviation Authority, are both exculpated. The purpose of all this would obviously be the preservation of the reputations of the PA Managing Director and the CAA Director General. It might be argued that the pilot, Captain Sajjad Gul, was no more, and throwing the blame on him would save these senior officials. However, thus sacrificing him would not only leave the cause of justice unserved, but would also besmirch the reputation of an experienced pilot.

There are a number of investigations going on. One, the preliminary investigation by the CAA, has been completed, and has not blamed pilot error, but has merely said that the plane scraped the tarmac on its first landing approach. Then there is to be the main investigation, by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board, which is headed by Air Commodore Inam Ghani. It is perhaps contrary to the appearance of fairness for the head of the four-member committee to be a junior of the head of PIA, a serving air marshal, who had to face litigation because of this. This investigation is expected to report in three months. As the plane was an Airbus 324-214, an Airbus investigation also is to be conducted, and a 14-member team arrived on Tuesday and visited the scene of the accident. The team was given the Cockpit Voice Recorder, which had been recovered from the scene of the accident, but not the Flight Data Recorder, which has not. Both ‘black boxes’ will be decoded by Airbus, and are absolutely crucial to any investigation.

Until the investigations are complete, there is no reason why more general issues of safety are to be swept under the carpet. While PIA’s sloppiness under the present MD and the CAA’s complicity under the present DG continue, passengers’ lives remain at stake.

from Pakistan Today https://ift.tt/36A2AVn