Hearsay made crash tragedy more painful
ISLAMABAD: Airblue’s crash was tragedy enough but the stream of unchecked information and unguarded comments over television channels made it worse, especially for the families of the 152 victims.
Desperate relatives rushed to hospitals after learning from the channels that some passengers of the ill-fated Flight ED-202 had survived and were being brought to hospitals.
They vacillated between hope and despair there for hours and returned home more distressed as none had.
Misguided and misled by the news on television channels, especially by the statements of two cabinet ministers that five passengers had survived the crash, relatives had been darting between Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) hospital in Sector G-8, Rescue 1122 offices and Polyclinic in G-6.
Sobbing relatives made their way to emergency rooms, catching hold of doctors, medical staff and gate keepers, desperate to find out how many had been brought in.
“News on TV said that they are bringing the injured to Polyclinic,” said Mohammad Farhan, whose father Malik M. Yusaf was on board the Flight ED-202.
Farhan had been standing outside emergency ward for four hours often turning his head towards the corner as if waiting for an ambulance to turn in.
“All the lines are busy. Nobody is giving correct information. I don’t even know who has the correct information,” he said. Farhan had spoken to his father who was in the plane just before take off around 7:50am.
Many stood in denial, with expressions of disbelief on their faces and a few completely lacking reaction.
Amjad Yaqoob Chaudhry and Mohammad Arshad Chaudhry, who introduced themselves as cousins of the first captain, Pervez Iqbal Chaudhry, also stood outside emergency ward after hearing on news channels that rescuers had airlifted the body of the pilot and transported it to the Polyclinic.
“There is no coordination or a higher officer to tell us what has happened. Relatives and friends have been running from pillar to post, trying to find out where the dead are being taken after being airlifted. It will take a lot of load off,” said Amjad Yaqoob Chaudhry.
Pyar Ali, an MSc student at the Karachi University, among others was not so lucky either. “He was visiting to attend a wedding in the family,” said his cousin, Ihsanullah Baig.
Ihsanullah said his only source of information was the news channels and those too were misreporting.
Later in the evening, Edhi and Rescue 1122 ambulances were parked outside the Army Aviation helipad, where nine dead bodies had been transported in army helicopters.
Some friends of the passengers waited desperately to find names of the dead flown in.
Misha Daood, an aspiring young football player, was also on board the Flight ED-202 that met with the worst air tragedy. “Misha was flying in from the US to participate in a national football championship,” said Misha’s team manager Rukhsar Rashid and her team player Tahira Ishaq.
“Misha Daood loved football and played as centre mid fielder for the Diya Women Club,” said Rukhsar Rashid.
But they too were turned away in disappointment and left shaken when National Disaster Management Authority Chairman Lt-Gen (retired) Naveed Ahmed said that none on board the Flight ED-202 survived and that it was not their job to identify bodies.
“Civil administration is leading the search and rescue operations. We are also playing our part and have some of the best pilots flying in to recover the dead. Although, the rains made our job extremely difficult and we had to abort MI-17 and Bell flights, Col Khalid Amir Rana and Lt-Col Safdar Tiwana are the same two exceptional flyers who flew the rescue flight on Nanga Parbat and are now on duty in Lama and Alouette helicopter. But no reports of any survivors has been received,” said Gen Ahmed, who supervised all operations.
). They also said that it will take two to three months before the report can come out.
