Crash...

Byline: Fahd Husain

GONE. Just like that - in an instant that snuffed out so many beautiful precious lives brimming with hopes, plans and dreams. What for? Because someone somewhere did not do what that person was supposed to do to ensure the safety and security of these beautiful precious lives? Because someone somewhere was too incompetent, too selfish, too uncaring to fix things that needed to be fixed so the PIA flight could land safely on the tarmac of Karachi airport and not go down in a ball of fire a few hundred metres short of the runway. These people - these beautiful precious people brimming with hopes, plans and dreams - they should not have died like this. Someone somewhere is responsible.

Is now the appropriate time to ask this question? You bet it is. Now is the time to proclaim loudly that these people would not have died if someone somewhere had done what that someone was supposed to have done. The nation grieves. It should also seethe. Seethe with anger and fury and rage at the criminal apathy and dereliction of duty that led to the PIA aircraft crashing on Friday. Seethe we must at all those who have contributed to the rot in all the institutions that are ultimately responsible for ensuring the safety of passengers flying on the national airline; seethe we must at those who have nourished this rot, aggravated it and lorded over the stench all the while knowing full well their actions could - would - one day lead to beautiful and precious lives being lost.

Red flags have been fluttering ominously for a while now. Here, there and everywhere. Lights flashing dimly. Sirens blaring silently. People screaming quietly. This is not right what we are doing, these lights and sirens and screaming people have been whispering to us. When you take institutions and staff them with underserving people recruited by unprofessional people for unmeritorious reasons then the outcome is fairly obvious. Human resource is compromised; systemic protocols are compromised and safety measures are compromised. The slow but sure degeneration of everything around us is an inevitable tragedy unfolding in slow motion.

Is PIA worth it anymore when it is bleeding lives, bleeding billions and bleeding all reasons to exist?

It is all coming crashing down. The standards, the expectations and the final outcomes. One big putrid heap of systemic carnage piled on top of decades of rot. It is such rot that obfuscates criminal negligence and dilutes the scale of...

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