36 years on, the mystery of PK-404 still haunts Gilgit-Baltistan

GILGIT: On the morning of August 25, 1989, Pakistan International Airlines flight PK-404 lifted off from the small airstrip in Gilgit, bound for Islamabad. It carried 55 passengers and crew — traders, students, civil servants, families — but it never arrived. No wreckage was found, no bodies recovered, and no official explanation has ever satisfied the questions.

Thirty-six years later, the story of PK-404 remains etched into the memory of Gilgit-Baltistan as a wound that refuses to heal.

For Zulfiqar Ahmed, the memory is painfully personal. Then a young student in Gilgit, he was supposed to be on that flight. “At the last moment, I couldn’t go and gave my ticket to our cousin, Irfan,” he recalls. “My younger brother Ejaz, who was my junior in college, boarded that morning. Irfan took my seat. Both were gone within hours. I’ve lived with that decision every day since.”

Today, Zulfiqar is a retired civil servant, having served as Director of the Local Council Board in Gilgit-Baltistan. Yet the years of service and the passage of time have not dulled the ache. “You learn to continue with life, but the wound is still there,” he tells The News.

His younger brother, Zahoor Ahmed, still remembers the routine journey to the airport that morning. “I dropped Ejaz and Irfan at Gilgit airport,” he says. “We said goodbye casually, never imagining it was forever. I can still see them walking through the gate.”

For their parents, the loss was unbearable. Their father kept hoping the door would open one day and his sons would return. Their mother, like many others, held on to rumours of survival — stories of hijackings, secret detentions, or a crash-landing in some hidden valley. “Every knock at the door made us hope,” Zulfiqar says. “Years went by, but the wait never ended.”

The Ahmed family’s anguish mirrors that of dozens of others.

Shahdin Riaz, another Gilgit resident and retired banker, lost not just one but several close relatives. “My elder brother was on board, along with his wife and their toddler,” he recalls quietly. “They had so much of life ahead of them. In a single morning, an entire family line was cut short.” He says the pain has never faded. “You cannot explain what it feels like to bury memories without ever having bodies to lay to rest. We were left with questions, with silence, and with grief that has no closure.”

In Gilgit-Baltistan, PK-404 became more than an air tragedy; it became a collective trauma. Generations have grown up hearing whispers about where the plane might have gone — downed by weather, diverted by hijackers, or lost forever in the mountains.

In a region already marked by dangerous mountain flying, the disappearance added a layer of fear and mistrust. For years, families gathered on anniversaries, sometimes at mosques, sometimes in each other’s homes, to share stories and cling to fading hopes. Many still do.

What hurts most, say relatives, is the silence. “No one ever gave us answers,” Zahoor says. “Not the airline, not the government. Thirty-six years later, we still don’t know what happened to our loved ones.”

As Gilgit wakes to another anniversary of PK-404, the unanswered questions hang in the air as heavily as they did in 1989. For the families, closure remains a distant dream, while for the region, the flight’s disappearance is a reminder of fragility, loss, and the enduring need for truth.