Averting a standoff: Volatile security situation forced diversion
Official says initial plan called for airlifting Dr Qadri as soon as the flight landed.
ISLAMABAD:
Authorities in the federal capital decided at the last minute to divert the Emirates flight carrying Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief Dr Tahirul Qadri from Islamabad to Lahore due to the fragile security situation on the ground, government sources have revealed.
The initial plan, according to these sources, incorporated two or three different options, none of which called for diverting the plane to Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport.
“If the government had any plan to divert the plane to Lahore, we would have conveyed it to the pilot soon after the aircraft entered Pakistani airspace,” a top government official told The Express Tribune. “The plane circled eight times around Islamabad airport before it was diverted to Lahore,” he said.
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who was supervising security, took the decision after assessing the situation and conveyed it to the aviation authorities, added the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The government’s initial plan called for airlifting Qadri to Lahore using a helicopter or small plane as soon as his flight landed at Benazir International Airport. Police was tasked with keeping protesters at least a few miles away from the airport area. They were instructed, however, to not use tear gas or batons on protesters.
But the plans came unstuck when PAT activists broke through all security barriers, reaching just outside the airport building. This left no other barrier between protesters and the airport building in the event the situation worsened, save for a few dozen Rangers and Airport Security Force (ASF) officials guarding the other side of the steel fence that serves as the airport’s boundary wall. The retreating policemen were engaged in skirmishes with PAT activists on the other end of the road instead of serving as a barrier before the airport building.
There was a possibility that the protesters would resort to violence once Qadri was airlifted from the airport, prompting security personnel to open fire, government sources said.
The incident not only earned the country a bad name, but also caused financial loss to the Emirates Airline, whose flight schedule was disturbed.
When Qadri refused to come out of the plane in Lahore, leaving the aircraft stranded, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif instructed aviation adviser Shujaat Azeem to contact the administration of Emirates Airline. Azeem offered to send the passengers stranded in Lahore and Islamabad to Dubai using a PIA plane, but Emirates declined it and informed Pakistani authorities that it was sending another aircraft to replace the crew of flight EK-612.
According to international aviation rules, a pilot cannot fly for more than eight hours on a trip. As EK-612 was stuck at Lahore airport for almost 12 hours, that duration was already consumed.
The flight took off from Lahore airport in the evening and reached Islamabad at 10:40pm.
Some media reports suggested Emirates could blacklist Qadri and bar him from using the airline in the future. This could not be confirmed, though.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 24th, 2014.
Authorities in the federal capital decided at the last minute to divert the Emirates flight carrying Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief Dr Tahirul Qadri from Islamabad to Lahore due to the fragile security situation on the ground, government sources have revealed.
The initial plan, according to these sources, incorporated two or three different options, none of which called for diverting the plane to Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport.
“If the government had any plan to divert the plane to Lahore, we would have conveyed it to the pilot soon after the aircraft entered Pakistani airspace,” a top government official told The Express Tribune. “The plane circled eight times around Islamabad airport before it was diverted to Lahore,” he said.
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who was supervising security, took the decision after assessing the situation and conveyed it to the aviation authorities, added the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The government’s initial plan called for airlifting Qadri to Lahore using a helicopter or small plane as soon as his flight landed at Benazir International Airport. Police was tasked with keeping protesters at least a few miles away from the airport area. They were instructed, however, to not use tear gas or batons on protesters.
But the plans came unstuck when PAT activists broke through all security barriers, reaching just outside the airport building. This left no other barrier between protesters and the airport building in the event the situation worsened, save for a few dozen Rangers and Airport Security Force (ASF) officials guarding the other side of the steel fence that serves as the airport’s boundary wall. The retreating policemen were engaged in skirmishes with PAT activists on the other end of the road instead of serving as a barrier before the airport building.
There was a possibility that the protesters would resort to violence once Qadri was airlifted from the airport, prompting security personnel to open fire, government sources said.
The incident not only earned the country a bad name, but also caused financial loss to the Emirates Airline, whose flight schedule was disturbed.
When Qadri refused to come out of the plane in Lahore, leaving the aircraft stranded, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif instructed aviation adviser Shujaat Azeem to contact the administration of Emirates Airline. Azeem offered to send the passengers stranded in Lahore and Islamabad to Dubai using a PIA plane, but Emirates declined it and informed Pakistani authorities that it was sending another aircraft to replace the crew of flight EK-612.
According to international aviation rules, a pilot cannot fly for more than eight hours on a trip. As EK-612 was stuck at Lahore airport for almost 12 hours, that duration was already consumed.
The flight took off from Lahore airport in the evening and reached Islamabad at 10:40pm.
Some media reports suggested Emirates could blacklist Qadri and bar him from using the airline in the future. This could not be confirmed, though.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 24th, 2014.