As usual we jump to conclusions as his the hallmark of the internet. The young lady already rests in peace, she died doing a job she signed up for and in the line of duty; and that is all one can ask for from Allah is to give her family patience to get through the shock that is inevitable after such an occurrence.
The aircraft is a F-7PG belonging to the Cheetahs which is based out of Rafiqui. Regardless of age(
New F-7PGs were recently purchased to replace older airframes a few years ago), there are a million things that can go wrong with a chunk of metal with thousands of parts running in it while controlled combustion of air at high speed occurs inside it. While the Accident review board will publish its findings, the area of the Crash site shows that it is still near somewhat populated areas as is common close to PAF Rafiqui. Which begs the speculation that both pilots must have tried to bring the aircraft back to its base at the least and when that failed.. the decision to eject must have been taken with the pilots trying their best to keep the aircraft away from populated centres.
The crash site tells more of the tale as the distance of the ejection seat from the crash site remarks of a VERY low ejection altitude for the pilots. How low is difficult to tell but the fact that it seems like pretty much the same acre of field means that the pilots kept fighting to keep the aircraft away from civilians as long as they could.
Now most PAF F-7s use the Martin Baker PK-10LZ seat which can be seen here for those interested.
MK10
These are very good seats, but this picture here tells a thousand words.
The seat lying that close to other metal debris suggests a very low altitude ejection and while these seats are rated zero/zero seats (meaning they will work at any speed and altitude), they do not guarantee safety in every situation.
At such low altitude, there is sometimes insufficient chance for the chute to slow the pilot down sufficiently as to reduce injuries.
In the terrain that the pilots fell in, whatever condition they fell in; injuries were bound to happen. Moreover, from what it seems is that Marium was in the front seat with her instructor at the back. In most twin seat aircraft, the back seat fires first because the opposite sequence at anything less than zero speed has the potential to fry the backseater.
That split second between the firing of the rear seat and the front is what gave the rear pilot enough time to survive with lesser injuries and took that opportunity away from Marium.
Now to those that decry the PAF using old planes , how about you first ask yourself or your father how much tax he gave? How much his brother, his cousin , your friends gave?
Then go find out where that tax went? You are a citizen, have hands and feet.. go find out. Because at the end every dog is a Lion on facebook and here, but are nothing more than pandering sheep. It's all fun to go and dance at rallies and jump on containers and thump your chest for a day behind your leaders. But at the end it all comes down to the usual excuse of "I am just one person" and coming up with the usual cowardly retort of "So what are you doing to ask me that question?".
As long as you are bound by your being just one person , and think all you can achieve in your meandering daily lives is facebook or forum dramatics.. dancing to Abrar-ul-Haq at rallies or at best acting tough around policemen in a group; then you are still sheep and have no idea of your rights and what you can achieve for change.
You are sheep, you have no control or right to question what the PAF does or does not do because your worth is nothing more than the packets of 101011101010 that stream over the internet. All of us here are nothing more than the usual 2 rupee crowd that surrounds an accident and whispers about who was at fault and why it happened. Those that had to pick up the injured and take them to hospital will do so, those men from Edhi who pick up the dead and take them to the morgue will do so.. and the rest of the usual cigarette, Gutka, Vape or cocomo crowd will move along and forget about it by the rise of the new day.. not before they post on facebook about it. You can all whine about why the system doesnt work or revolution, tabdeeli bullcrap but it is you as a collective who are the cause and cure for it.
Like the many Chutiyas(
sorry admin team, but that is the most polite word I have for my fellow countrymen of this class) who go around talking crap about expats or "
those that had the opportunity" and so on, there is a gentleman here who has made his millions if not hundreds of millions after starting out as a janitor. His life is settled, his children married.. and he drives the top cars. Yet, every year around Spring he takes ten doctors from the US and goes back to Pakistan to set up a free clinic. He works with them, supervises them.. and he comes back to repeat the cycle. He says little to ministers nor does he takes pictures with them, just those of his patients that his doctors keep as tokens. He does not have that published in any paper unless some local blog asks about it.
When a Syrian refugee can set up a food shelter in Germany for the homeless, I am sure the least most of you can do beside your usual gallum galoch and empty internet threats is to do more than just donate money. You are an intelligent nation, because otherwise there is no way you would be famous for pulling off some of the most elaborate immigration scams Europe has ever seen. Clearly the intelligence can and does go positive for 50% but is sadly only channelled correctly for 10%.. why not 70%?
What is your obsession with Messiahs? Because the Mariums and her brothers and sisters in the armed forces, and many others in all professions of life who do well because they mean well and know that they are the masters of their own fate will continue to do what they can, give their lives where they can regardless of Ayi Ayi PTI, Sher aya, Bhutto, Mutahida, Maudoodis, Barelvis, Shia, Sunni ,Hizb ut tahrir-un-Chuttus, Dharhi , No-Dharhi , Patila Gharana or whether you like Atif Aslam's Tajdar-e-Haram or that of Sabris which you can as dumb homo-sapiens can argue and murder about for the rest of your lives. It makes you no different than the other billions from across the world on the internet talking about Kardishans or the new Golden Kit Kat in Japan. The only difference is that this is Pakistan, which you inhabit.
Unless we look beyond these false paths and leadership and realize that our own messiah is ourselves, and that our own worst enemy is ourselves. Mariums will continue to plummet out of the sky, Malalas will continue to be suppressed or exploited by foreign hands.. and Zardaris will continue to smile and squash your pithy little heads into the gutter.
I am not ranting a path, that is for you to choose. All I sermon is a moment of sitting for a minute and thinking whether whatever you are doing, whatever you are thinking, whatever opinion you hold regardless of how much you know about it or not.. whether it is actually of any weight or of benefit to your fellow Pakistani, Your fellow Muslim.. your fellow human regardless of what he/she may think about you; good or bad. Because you may or may not stumble upon something inside you that will create that opportunity for you to create change or opportunity, or help those without opportunity.
The PAF will do what it must, but it can definitely use some of you in helping it write that one piece of code or making that one design of electronics that might help it, and then you can leave it and be on your way; make your life for yourself and don't ever look back. But do that one little thing, even if it means checking how much tax you give and if it is correct; even if you don't check where it goes or not it still ends up a teeny bit into making sure that at the least.. a nut to secure the tires on a F-16 can be bought. Regardless of bad the system is, you will be trying to make it work.. and maybe someone else will.. and another will.. and someone might catch the tax guy, someone will put it on some channel, someone will get the local MPA.. because each someone will see someone doing something, and their fear of "I am standing alone" will vanish.
Marium is gone, she is probably being buried this morning or the next.. and the Soyem will follow a few days later.. why dont you guys read a few chapters of the Quran if it really meant anything beyond writing a post to you for her. But if the events of the world as they are unfolding at the maddening rate we see do not spark anything in you that did not involve that minute of introspection; then nothing will.. so then your worrying about the F-7PG.. its age and ejection issues means still nothing.
No one should ever be asked to walk in rallies, throw down containers because at the end of the day its just one face replacing the next; and your face being nothing more than one of many in that flock of sheep dancing away. But one can ask, at the least.. to make sure if your fellow engineering, marketing or whatever classfellow is writing up papers to cheat.. to ask him/her not to and offer to teach them instead. If nothing else, you offered.. is that too much to ask?
