AirBlue crash report: An expected waste
We love to be experts, be it speculation behind the reasons for an avalanche or an aviation disaster. But unfortunately some of our experts fail quite miserably. Their reflection on events and their opinions are not only shallow but unworthy of being called an ‘expert opinion’. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has recently released the investigation report of the AirBlue crash. Now I must proclaim that my expertise in aviation accident investigation does not go beyond watching National Geographic’s investigations of air disasters. However, having watched multiple seasons of that series, I understand that the purpose of an investigation report is twofold. The ...
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The last few minutes on a crashing plane
They were headed for a destination; some for familiar places, others looking for new ventures. She must’ve been sitting on the aisle, slowly sipping a glass of coke, glancing at the in-flight entertainment every now and then. A toddler must’ve been on his first flight looking out the window amazed at the puffy white clouds outside his window. The crew may be behind the curtain, cracking jokes, stacking up food trays and fixing their attires. There might have a been a man in a suit, typing away corporate plans for his company for the next two quarters. A father may have ...
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Bhoja Air crash: Where are our media ethics?
Hit by one colossal tragedy after the other, the people of Pakistan are heartbroken and disappointed. What could have been an averted disaster became the inevitable when Bhoja Air decided to fly its 40-year-old Boeing 737-200 for Rawalpindi on April 20, 2012. Boarded by newly married couples, children and their parents among others, at 5:05 pm from the Karachi airport, the inaugural flight came hurtling down towards the outskirts of Rawalpindi at around 6:46 pm on Friday. While I checked channels for updated reports and alerts on any survivors, I couldn’t help but notice how rash and obscenely inappropriate the local ...
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Bhoja Air crash: Tragedy for the professional cynic
Here’s what an ordinary day in the newsroom is like: Stories come in, at regular intervals. People edit them, casually, in the knowledge that our paper will reach our readers tomorrow. People take cigarette breaks. Someone reminds someone else to turn the television on in case of breaking news, which usually turns out to be something insipid (at least for a journalist), like tyre burning at XYZ roundabout. Here is what today, the day that over a hundred lost their lives in the Bhoja Air crash, was like: At close to 7 pm, breaking news turned out to be far more than ...
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How disasters should be dealt with
Modern techniques and equipment cannot avert either natural or man-made disasters but surely use of available resources, comprehensive planning, and effective training to agencies handling calamities can reduce the consequences. Apportioning responsibility for the Bhoja Air crash will be a lengthy process as it requires advanced technology and equipment to ascertain the causes of the incident. Likewise, Pakistan does not have a culture which requires the authorities to share information or findings of such disasters. Examples from history further reinforce this: East Pakistan debacle, Kargil adventure and the July 2010 Airblue crash in which 152 people lost their lives. Now, ...
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Power marred by tragedy: Kennedys, Gandhis and Bhuttos
Fairy tales will always be just that, fairy tales! Happily ever after can never reach the extraordinary heights reached by its antagonist, tragedy. And when tragedy strikes real people, it hits where it affects the most and becomes history. Perhaps the biggest ambassadors of misfortune are the three cursed, first families that we loved, believed in and mourned over the years. The Kennedys, Gandhis and Bhuttos sow a similar fate and carved the same destiny for themselves. The intertwined dynasties of these families were given the same screen play, with different settings and dialogues. John F Kennedy the 35th president of the United States ...
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Dastaan: History on TV
Dastaan, a Hum TV production, is probably the most gripping modern day ode to the beauty and simplicity of pre-partition life. Written by Razia Butt, Dastaan depicts the love story of Hasan (Fawad Khan) and Bano (Sanam Baloch) – a romance which is shred to pieces by the gruesome and gory separation of 1947. The drama starts off as a tender series of events between the couple, but later morphs into a saga full of blood, greed and lust. This turn of events hurls Bano, the quintessential Pakistani girl, into the arms of madness, because she is devastated by the ...
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Media sensationalism trumped by online insensitivity
When the Airblue flight ED 202 crashed into the Margalla hills, there was a barrage of criticism against the media reportage of the incident. Sensationalist, unethical and downright insensitive were the allegations against the Pakistani media, and to be honest, they were not misplaced. From boasting to be the first ones to have broken the news to showing gory footage of blood and body parts, running after families of the victims for juicy soundbytes depicting their pain and giving false hope by airing incorrect reports of survivors, the media certainly had a chargesheet of complaints against it, and justifiably so. Bloggers ...
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What 32 dead school children are saying
This is a story of a cruel, ruthless and heartless Pakistani system that has failed. And no elections can save it, without a major change. A mother in northern Pakistan jumped into a river where five of her children drowned after the management of a privately-run school sent them off in a crammed bus driven by the school’s gatekeeper, or chowkidar, who then drove it off a cliff. Every once in a while comes a news story that makes your heart stop. And this is one of them. Pakistan’s politicians can spend $11 million on a statue for a dead politician ...
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State of the nation
I am a journalist, and I love being a Pakistani journalist. While taking pride in being Pakistani can be difficult at times, there is no denying that it’s an ideal place for reporting thanks to the myriad issues we face. We have poverty, war, fashion, controversy, tragedy, natural disasters, alliances, personalities, economic downturn and shaky governments. In short, a reporter’s paradise. If nothing else, journalists can build a really good CV in this country. I remember having a conversation with an American about the Fulbright scholarship requirement that students return to their homeland at the end of their courses. And I ...
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