The news of Bhoja Air crash shook the entire country all at once. Every local news channel was covering the accident insensitively, showing dead bodies and wreckage of the plane. Each anchorperson was pointing fingers and raising questions about the accident. 127 people lost their precious lives but it was merely an exclusive news event for many channels. Thanks to the free media, the news reached everywhere immediately, but no one was considering the ethics related to such reporting. News Channels were trying to achieve the mileage and earn more viewer ratings. This event will be in the headlines for few days, but eventually the media will forget this event and will get busy in some more exclusive issue like that of the ‘wedding of a sania mirza’.
One thing which was brought again to the limelight due to this crash was the forgotten Airblue plane crash at Margalla hills. Airblue plane crashed and resulted in a similar hue and cry all over the country. Promises were made for a thorough investigation, but nothing substantial happened. The families of the victims still don’t know the real reasons. Bhoja Air accident happened near same airport and under same weather conditions again because lessons were not learnt from the first one. No one was held accountable, which led to conspiracy theories related to the air crash.
Few weeks before the Bhoja Air crash, Dawn news reported about Airblue plane crash that and said: ‘ It is regrettable that the causes of the crash, compensation to the families of the deceased and preventive measures are yet to be fully resolved even after about 21 months’. It further says ‘Worse still, this will also show that Pakistan does not have even a handful of persons of competence to handle its domestic air crash’.
As it is said in a famous urdu verse :
حالات پرورش کرتے ھیں برسوں
حادثہ ایک دم نہیں ھوتا
Neglecting mistakes over the years lead to accidents. And once again the similar accident occurred. Had we properly enquired the previous air crash, this one could have been avoided. The sense of accountability and responsibility towards human lives is totally missing in this scenario.
Islam doesn’t forbid us to take safety measures. Being a biomedical engineer, I have witnessed a lot of such events in hospitals, where ‘technical’ mistakes of medics and paramedics lead to the death of a patient, but the family members are told that ‘its will of Allah’. Indeed its will of Allah, but HE has made us accountable for what we do. This is a ‘trick of the trade’ in all the professions in Pakistan that when some human calamity occurs, blame Almighty for it and avoid lawsuits which may follow in any civilized country.
There is a commercial aspect to the whole story. The plane of Bhoja air was apparently old and unfit for flying, yet it was allowed to fly ‘this one time’. The pilot was probably under pressure for not diverting the plane to any other destination because of the fuel consumption. Still the circumstances are not unveiled that what made the pilot to decide for landing in such weather conditions. The known thing is only that 127 people lost their lives. Saving a human life, is like saving entire humanity. But here, we don’t care about the safety of hundreds of lives.
While i was typing these lines, news were coming in about a plane of Shaheen air, whose landing gear broke while landing. Thankfully the aircraft narrowly escaped the disaster which could have been terrible. This clearly indicates that rules regarding technical aspects and safety of aircrafts need to be forcefully implemented.
Its pity that we don’t plan for emergency situations. Alot of incidents of fire eruption occur, but we rarely find that something has been learnt from these mistakes. Precious lives are continuously at stake. I wonder when will be ‘grown enough’ to realize our social responsibilities as citizens of this country. Human life is the cheapest thing available in Pakistan.
The media is more focused on increasing its TRPs. The entire coverage is based on sensations. Media did the same in air blue crash and then never took up the matter in upcoming months. Airtime was then reserved for the the likes of veenas and meeras and no one pointed out the mistakes that led to the air crash. This will happen again, people will forget it, and the government will get busy in protecting its corruption.
Some lessons need to be learnt from this air crash. Better we learn them sooner and avoid repeating mistakes.