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It is both sad and inspiring to listen to Shaukat A. Mecklai talk about the 1965 Cairo crash. Sad because only six of the 128 passengers on board Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Flight 705 survived and inspiring because not everyone can walk away from a tragedy as massive as that to make a new life for oneself. Still that is exactly what this man, one of the six survivors of Boeing 720-040B, has done. Ninety-three years ‘young’ today, Shaukat sits in his tastefully-decorated drawing room to recall all that took place on that fateful May 20 of 1965.
“It was PIA’s inaugural flight from Karachi to Cairo and many of the passengers on board were the airline’s guests. I being the managing director of my travel agency, the Universal Express, was initially overlooked at the time of sending out the invitations as they were more inclined on inviting counter staff along with some members of the press. But all that changed, well as far as I was concerned anyway, once I was able to convince PIA that I was deserving of the freebie, too, as being the managing director of my agency I was the one really responsible for generating business,” he explains.
But even though Mecklai talked the national flag carrier into letting him take the trip, they weren’t prepared to do the same for his better half, Bano, who was also a director in his agency. But she insisted upon accompanying him anyway. “When we first tried buying her a ticket, we were told that there were no seats available. Then just five hours before take off, we were informed about a cancellation in the first class. That was how she accompanied me on the aircraft. It was to be our 23rd honeymoon,” Mecklai sighs.
“On the plane, there was a big distance between us as she was seated up front in first class while I was right at the back in the tourist class. During the flight, I was invited by PIA’s commercial and marketing director Jimmy Mirza to join my wife for a game of bridge, which I wanted to do very much. We had a lovely time till we reached our first stop at Dhahran and I had to return to my seat before landing there.
“My seat was the very last one in the plane right next to the galley and when the ear phones I was handed to watch the movie they were showing did not work after taking off from Dhahran, I decided to talk to the attractive air hostess Momie Durrani busy serving drinks at the bar. Momie was known as ‘the face of PIA’. I had heard a lot of good things about her but the lady I met that day came across as rather cranky. So not happy with her behaviour, I asked her to give me a complaint card, which immediately jolted her out of her mood. When she asked me what I wanted it for, I told her that I may not be the most handsome man in the world but I was a guest on the inaugural flight and her behaviour was not very welcoming.
“That was when the lady explained that she was on her second continuous flight, one that she was not supposed to be on according to aviation rules, and that she was actually filling in for a sick colleague. Therefore she requested to be excused for her behaviour as she was tired.
“Well, what can one say ... she was not supposed to be on the ill-fated plane but was. Another gentleman who was supposed to be on the flight wasn’t. I am talking of a newspaper reporter, who discovered that his passport had expired just before boarding the plane at Karachi. Not even the intervention from General Haiuddin, who was then chief of the Press Trust, could get the man on the plane. Though he was very angry at the time, he must have thanked his luck for being prevented to come with us later,” points out Mecklai.
“Anyway, on getting back to my seat, I found someone else sitting in it. The man occupying it was from Globe travels in Lahore and he wanted to sit with his travel agency’s representative from Karachi, my neighbour on the plane. Still I insisted that he vacate my seat and go back to his own, which he eventually did after some argument, and just before we were about to land at Cairo,” Mecklai continues.
He remembers that they had put on their hats and collected their cabin luggage as the plane took one circle around Cairo Airport before being cleared for landing for runway 34 when it crashed on the ground short of the runway.“I remember seeing the right wing on fire before I blacked out. I was still semiconscious when I opened my eyes again and didn’t realise that I was screaming out my own name ‘Shaukat! Shaukat!’ instead of calling for help. Another passenger, a young man himself bleeding from the head, came to my rescue. I was badly hurt but he pulled me out of the wreck. There were dead bodies and luggage lying all around us. I saw my wife’s lifeless form among them. My eyes saw but there was no reaction. Still in a state of shock, a film of my life went through my mind, of my childhood and all the things I had seen and done in life and those things, too, that I had put off to do later. Thinking my life would soon be over, I thought of God and said that if He gave me another chance to live, I would do everything with the thought of there being no tomorrow, and that I would devote myself to serve others less fortunate than myself,” Mecklai shares.
Suddenly they saw a lot of people come towards them. The passenger pulling out survivors from the burning plane ran to them and said “Allah-o-Akbar” but they were not really there for help. All they did was pick up the luggage and walk off. By the time help came, some five to six hours after the accident, many victims who had been groaning from pain earlier had already died. The authorities seemed ill-equipped to handle such a big disaster. The rescue helicopter didn’t even have a stretcher.
Finally, there were only six survivors. Mecklai had injured his back and broken his ribs from which he recovered in time but the emotional injuries that he had suffered were to be carried for good. A happily married man was suddenly a widower and a single father to three children. But he knew that he had to carry on no matter what, a feeling that became stronger on his return to Karachi where he and the other survivors were greeted by a big crowd that felt that there was something very special about the six to have survived such a major crash and wanted to touch them to feel blessed themselves.
The first flight that Mecklai took after the crash was also a PIA flight to Cairo. “After discussing it with my children, we decided to leave my wife’s remains in Cairo with the other victims of the crash. PIA flew me and some relatives of other victims to pay our last respects to the dearly departed at Cairo. It was a very emotional experience for me and my knees were knocking throughout the flight. But that never happened again after saying goodbye to her and my coming to terms with the fact that what happened was God’s will,” says Mecklai who besides taking good care of himself and all others around him is often found doing tasbeeh to thank the Almighty for all His blessings, and a second chance at life.
As the children grew, Mecklai, too, fell in love again. Unlucky thrice due to tragedy and heartbreak, he has found his soul mate in his fourth wife, the lovely Noor Jehan Mecklai, who is the light of his life. They have been married for 23 years now. Noor Jehan makes it a point to celebrate each of her husband's birthdays in a big way. Jalal-al-Karimi, the gentleman who had pulled Mecklai out of the plane wreck on that fateful day 46 years ago, is a familiar face at all the big birthday bashes. The bond shared by the two men has made them very good friends despite the difference in their ages.
