Pakistani minister blames airline for buying a 30-year-old “rickshaw” to fly passengers to their death but airline boss says heavy winds caused crash.
The head of Bhoja Air is in “protective custody” and banned from leaving Pakistan while investigators sift for clues amid the wreckage of a jet crash that killed all 127 aboard.
The Boeing 737-200 was a few kilometres from Islamabad’s airport and the main highway when witnesses described a fireball hurtling toward them. The plane, flying in a severe thunderstorm, crash landed in a muddy wheat field.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Farooq Bhoja, head of Bhoja Air, had been put on the “exit control list” to prevent him from leaving Pakistan while a criminal investigation gets underway.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has ordered a judicial commission to investigate the cause of the crash and cautioned relatives and others not to speculate until the facts are known.
Despite this, Malik said that the airline “seems to be at fault as it had acquired a very old aircraft.”
“If the airline management doesn’t have enough money it doesn’t mean you go and buy a 30-year-old or more aircraft as if it were a rickshaw and start an airline,” Malik told reporters at the scene of the disaster
The domestic carrier has four planes. It resumed operations in March after suspending them in 2001 due to financial difficulties.
The cause of the tragedy is far from clear, however. Bhoja administrative director Javed Ishaq said the jet was in good condition and was brought down by “heavy winds.”
Some experts have speculated that wind shear – sudden changes in wind that can lift or smash an aircraft into the ground during landing – could have been a factor.
The last major plane crash in the country – and Pakistan’s worst – occurred in July 2010 when an Airbus A321 aircraft operated by domestic carrier Airblue crashed into the hills overlooking Islamabad, killing all 152 people aboard. A government investigation blamed the pilot for veering off course amid stormy weather.