By Usman Manzoor
The family of a Pakistani pilot, who ‘disappeared’ in the mysterious crash of an aircraft in Afghanistan in November 2005, has decided to knock the doors of the Supreme Court after getting no response from anywhere about his whereabouts.
The crash of the Kabul-Bagram flight was reported by the Western and Afghan media on November 11, 2005, but neither the makers (IL-76 Cargo Aircraft) nor the operators (Royal Airlines Pakistan using call sign RPK-1102) ever confirmed the crash. According to the pilot’s family, no international databases of air crashes have any record of such an accident on that particular day. “The Russians had also denied the crash and the Americans had erased all evidence which could have led to the facts about the crash,” said the family.
Talking to ‘The News’ from Lahore, the father of Captain Mehdi Husnain Ali said that his son was a pilot, but the company operating the cargo plane, Royal Airlines Pakistan, had showed him as flight manager, an administrative post, to avoid the insurance liability. He said that the company did not bother to pay the insurance and instead wound up its business.
He said that on his insistence from the company about the appointment letter of his son, a fake appointment letter (copy available) was provided to him showing Mehdi Husnain as flight manager and his pay was decided to be 3,000 dirhams, which by no means was possible for a pilot like Mehdi Husnain Ali. The insurance documents show that each crew had an insurance of $10 million as crew liability, but Mehdi Husnain’s father says that the company never bothered to visit the crash site and pay the insurance.
“The Civil Aviation Authority provided the report after four years, which states that the airline — Royal Air Pakistan — took remarkable care of Mehdi’s family which was ridiculous,” said the ailing father. He added: “We have only one option left; we request the chief justice to help us know the reality of the so-called air crash.”
The then managing director of defunct Royal Airlines Pakistan, Captain Ejaz Faizi, was contacted on his mobile phone (0300-8241636) a number of times during last three weeks, but he never responded.
The crash investigation report mentions that the black boxes of the plane were mysteriously ‘spoiled’ and the plane was owned by Global Georgian Airways and was leased out to the Royal Airlines Pakistan.
The ISAF-NATO had brought new evidence on August 5, 2008, which changed the findings. Photographs of these parts have been sent to manufacturers in Georgia through IAC Russian, but because of inadequate arrangements through Bis 83, the identification is still awaited. The database of international website, www.airdisaster.com, does not contain information about this particular air crash on November 11, 2005.
The father of the ‘deceased’ Pakistani pilot claimed that a security official of the Kabul Airport told him that the Allied Forces in Afghanistan, on charges of spying, arrested the Russians boarded on the plane and the aircraft was set ablaze to show it as an air crash.