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Sunday, August 17, 2008
Zia’s plane crashed due to mechanical problem: report
LONDON: The plane crash in a Bahawalpur desert 20 years ago that killed former president Gen Ziaul Haq along with United States Ambassador Arnold Raphael and spawned several conspiracies theories has now been blamed on mechanical problem, according to a report in The Times. According to the daily, American, Soviet, Indian and even Israeli intelligence agents were among those blamed for sabotaging the PAF C-130 Hercules plane. The Times has uncovered a far less complicated explanation. According to US investigators, a mechanical problem, known to be relatively common with the C-130 military transport aircraft, was to blame. “There were a lot of conspiracy theories and there still are, understandably in that part of the world,” Robert Oakley, who took over as US Ambassador to Pakistan after the crash and helped handle the politically fraught investigation, told The Times. Washington sent a team of the US air force officers to assist the Pakistanis in the investigation. The two sides reached sharply different conclusions. Nancy Ely-Raphel, the ambassador’s widow, and Brigadier General Wassom’s wife, Judy, were both told by US investigators that the crash was caused by a mechanical fault. Oakley identified the mechanical fault as a problem with the hydraulics in the tail assembly. Although US Air Force pilots had handled such emergencies, the Pakistani pilots were less well equipped to do so. Witnesses to the crash cited in Pakistan’s official investigation said the C-130 began to pitch “in an up-and-down motion” while flying low shortly after take-off before going into a “near-vertical dive” into the desert. The Pakistani report said the broken cables found at the crash site were of the proper length and had been pulled out in the accident. Analysis by a US lab found “extensive contamination” by brass and aluminium particles in the elevator booster package. But the report said, “Failure of the elevator control system due to a mechanical failure . . . is ruled out.” It cited the aircraft-maker Lockheed as saying that “even with the level of contamination found in the system, they have not normally experienced any problems other than wear”. The report concluded, “This confirms the board’s findings that the contamination of the elevator booster package may at worst cause sluggish controls leading to over control but not to an accident.”In the absence of a mechanical cause, the Pakistani inquiry concluded that the crash was an act of sabotage. The daily said Pakistani investigators found no conclusive evidence of an explosion on the aircraft, but said chemicals that could be used in small explosives were detected in mango seeds and a piece of rope found on the aircraft. app
Courtesy Daily Times