Losing Height

The journey of Pakistan International Airlines, from a position where it operated proudly with the slogan ‘Great People to Fly With’ – and justified every word of it - to the dismal situation where various governments have been unsuccessfully trying to revive it, or even to get rid of it, has been a rather long and distressing one. The airline which once helped establish the aviation industry in the Gulf countries, now finds itself struggling for its own survival. It is extremely shocking that PIA, which had managed to purchase the prestigious Roosevelt Hotel in New York and Hotel Scribe in Paris from its own earnings, has now become a massive burden on the country’s exchequer.

However, irrespective of whether the government decides to retain the airline or privatize it, it has to be made functional first. There are signs that given sufficient time and powers, and adequate government support, the CEO Arshad Malik can turn it around. After all, the thorough destruction of PIA that occurred over years and decades cannot be reversed instantly. Various political parties used PIA as a dumping ground to oblige their favourites by appointing persons in the airline in complete disregard of merit and actual requirement. For example, as against an average global staff-to-aircraft ratio of around 150 to 1, PIA has over three times that number per aircraft. Moreover, corruption has become rampant in the airline over the years. Workers’ and pilots’ unions have become so powerful that they virtually hold the PIA management to ransom and have fiercely resisted all attempts to rationalize affairs or privatize the airline.

In the unfortunate accident of flight PK-8303 during an attempted landing at Karachi Airport on May 22, 2020, 89 of the 91 passengers on board as well as 8 crew members lost their lives, while two passengers survived, suffering injuries. Another 8 persons were injured on the ground, one of whom died later in the hospital.

The preliminary report of the Air Accidents Investigation Branch ruled out any technical fault in the aircraft and held human errors by the air crew and the air traffic control responsible for the accident. The pilots, despite being experienced and competent, failed in this instance, to focus on the flight and seemed distracted by the Covid-19 situation. They are reported to have ignored repeated warnings by the ATC to lower the altitude and speed as prescribed for a safe landing, and insisted they would ‘manage’. Moreover, they lowered the landing gear in preparation for their attempt to land but later retracted the gear. In doing so,the aircraft brushed the ground, which caused some damage to the engines. Then they aborted the landing and went for a ‘go around’ to make a second landing attempt. However, since the aircraft engines had been damaged in the first attempt, and soon failed, they could not gain the required height to make the second landing and the plane crashed 1,340 metres short of the runway. Unfortunately, ATC also failed to warn the pilots in time about the retracted landing gear and the damage caused during the aborted landing attempt.