The PIA plane that mysteriously disappeared while flying

August 25, 1989: Exactly 35 years ago today, Gilgit from the airport at 7:36 AM PIA The Fokker plane took off. It was a bright and sunny morning.

There were reports of some rough weather en route but nothing too alarming.

The name of the flight was PK 404 and its destination was Islamabad, 300 km away, where it was supposed to land after a 55-minute flight. There were 49 passengers and five crew members on board.

The plane was being flown by Captain SS Zubair while he was accompanied by Captain Ahsan Iqbal Bilgrami. The first officer was Sohail Iqbal.

The aircraft was a Fokker F27 Friendship which had arrived in Gilgit carrying passengers from Islamabad early in the morning and was on its way back.

At 7:40 a.m. four minutes after takeoff, the pilot told the control tower: ‘We’ve reached Bungee.’

Bunji is a town situated on the Silk Road and the Indus River some 40 km south-east of Gilgit.

This was the last contact from this aircraft. That day and today, exactly 35 years have passed but no trace of this plane has been found.

There was no distress call of ‘Mayday’ from the ship, nor was it detected on radar.

Despite repeated air and ground searches Plane wreckage He could not be found nor the answer to the question whether he was swallowed by the earth or eaten by the sky.

The news made headlines for days (thanks to Jang).

Ships keep getting lost at sea. Ten years ago, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is still fresh in the minds of people who disappeared in a similar manner.

Despite a 10-year search, the complete wreckage or black box of this plane could not be found, but a few fragments were definitely found that indicated that it had sunk somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

But the disappearance of the 82-foot-long and 95-foot-wide plane thousands of kilometers from the sea is a mysterious event that still baffles aviation experts.

Famous Gilgit GM Beg was also on this ship (Ikram Beg).

‘They are still in a state of agony’

Even after 35 years, the families of the 54 people who were on board this ship have kept the candle lit in memory of their loved ones.

In the same plane, the famous person of Gilgit, GM Beg, was also on board, who has been mentioned by Mustansar Hussain Tarar in his many travelogues.

His son Akram Baig told Independent Urdu: ‘My father GM Baig was also on board this ship. The deceased was a famous social personality of Gilgit-Baltistan.

‘When this accident happened in 89, there was no trace of it, no trace. At that time, a lot of search operations were also carried out, both by helicopter and on the ground. But no trace of him has been found till date.’

Ikram Baig said, ‘Obviously, we are very sorry for the disappearance of father. Still has. There is still a mystery as to what happened and what did not happen.

‘It was a huge setback for our family. Still in the agony that it may come to the public scene what happened to him.’

The uncle of another victim, Arif Hussain, and his entire family were on board the plane. “There were about six members of my family in it,” he told The Independent. Almost means that the arrival of a newborn was also expected. That’s why this tragedy came as a doom on our family.’

Arif Hussain said about the theories of the plane’s disappearance that ‘at that time there was a news that the plane had been taken down in the city of Pul Charkhi in Afghanistan and all the people of this ill-fated Fokker plane were safe there.

Even my younger grandfather, whose daughter was also on board, went to Brughal Pass along with the father of another passenger.

There he himself conducted a search operation. Went to the drains, kept searching.’

Then gradually the reality emerged that the ship must have met with an accident and there was no chance of their survival.’

Deputy Commissioner Naseeruddin along with his entire family was coming to Islamabad by this flight (Arif Hussain).

Very safe ship

This aircraft was built by the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker. It was considered a very safe ship in its time and has been widely used on all continents.

In Pakistan, PIA used it for short-haul flights for a long time.

The twin-engined aircraft had the model number Friendship 200 and was built in 1962. It had flown 44,500 hours by 1989.

Earlier, in December 1972, a Fokker F-27 plane crashed on its way to Islamabad from PK 631 Gilgit, killing all 26 people on board.

It is worth noting that the plane lost contact after the flight and was declared missing by PIA.

However, after an extensive search, his remains were discovered the next day in a village called Jalkot near Dasu, the headquarters of Kohistan division.

The Fokker was generally considered a very safe ship (Public Domain).

The Fokker is a reliable aircraft, but every piece of machinery has its age. When the aircrafts that Pakistan has started getting old, the number of accidents also increased.

Finally, when a Fokker plane from Multan to Lahore crashed in a mango orchard on July 10, 2006, taking the lives of 45 people with it, PIA decided to retire the Fokker planes. It was replaced by ATR aircraft which are still operating on short routes.

But Fokker Flight 404 was not so stereotypical as to suddenly disappear into the sky. A number of hypotheses have been formulated to find the answer to this question.

The plane was hijacked

At that time, there was a rumor that the ship might have been hijacked and taken to a Central Asian country.

Earlier in 1981, a PIA flight was hijacked and flown to Afghanistan, fueling these rumours.

Fell in the mountains

An eyewitness saw the plane flying near Nanga Parbat. At 8126 meters, Nanga Parbat is the ninth highest peak in the world and the second highest peak in Pakistan. At its foot are several large glaciers where a ship can disappear.

Then it is also possible that the place where the ship hit, an avalanche fell on top of it, covering the ship completely, and the ship is buried under the ice to this day.

However, Arif Hussain says that ‘It was the month of August when many shepherds went to the upper peaks. If the plane had crashed somewhere, someone would have seen something.’

India beat

An idea was also expressed that the plane might have strayed and crossed the Line of Control where it was shot down by India.

Arif says, ‘What happened to this plane, these are just speculations. It cannot be ruled out that the vessel may have crossed the Indian border, and may have been intercepted within Indian territory.’

However, India denied this, and according to the newspapers of the time, it even gave special permission to Pakistani search mission planes to fly over the Line of Control.

Many aircraft have disappeared at sea, but the loss of PK 404 on land is unique in aviation history and apparently has the highest number of casualties.

Earlier in 1968, an Indian Air Force plane went missing during a storm in the Ladakh region.

After extensive search, no trace of him was found. However, exactly 51 years later, the wreckage of this ship was found on a 17 thousand feet high glacier.

PIA flight number that disappeared from Gilgit was PK 404. The computer gets an error message, 404 Not Found. A strange coincidence is that this flight 404 also remains unfound till date.

Error 404 is used for file not found on the computer (public domain).

However, if the wreckage of the Indian ship can be found after half a century, it gives hope that some day the wreckage of PK 404 may also be found lying on the side of a cloud-covered peak in the Himalayas or Karakoram or in a deep ravine. .