Crash-landing pilot charged with terrorism

Wife says he was picked by unidentified men

LAHORE: Sarwar Road police on Sunday registered an attempted murder and terrorism case against Captain Asmat Mehmood, the head pilot of a Shaheen Air flight that crash landed at Allama Iqbal International Airport on November 3. 

The FIR also mentioned charges regarding consumption of an intoxicant.

Earlier, an inquiry committee had fixed responsibility for the accident on the pilot. On Sunday, the CAA stated that a medical examination of the plane’s crew after the accident had shown that the pilot was under the influence and fatigued during the flight. It said that the Civil Aviation Rules (CAR) prohibited consumption of alcohol by the crew during or immediately before a flight. It said that alcohol concentration in Captain Mehmood’s blood sample obtained during a medical examination conducted immediately after the accident was more than double the 40mg per deciliter level allowed for pilots by the United States’ Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), it said.

Meanwhile, Captian Mumtaz, a member of the inquiry committee that had held the pilot responsible for the accident, said the inquiry had not been impartial. He said the findings were not shared with him before they were made public and he would not own them.

CAA spokesperson Pervaiz Goerge refused comment on whether or not the inquiry was partial. He said medical examination report of the pilot had been referred to the CAA’s Safety Investigation Board (SIB).

Separetely, the pilot’s wife alleged that her husband was kidnapped from their home in Karachi by 12 men. She said the ‘kidnappers’ had arrived in a police van. She said she could identify two of them.

She dismissed the report that the pilot was drunk during the flight.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 16^th, 2015.