Multan, July 14: “His entire life, since he began to crawl as a baby, stood up on his feet for the first time, took his first step, to growing up and becoming a promising pilot, has been playing back in my mind ever since I have lost my son,” said Azhar Chughtai, the father of one of the pilots, Ibrar Azhar, of the ill-fated Fokker plane that crashed in Multan on Monday last.

Mr Chughtai is a civil engineer working in Saudi Arabia. He and his wife Farhat were in Jeddah when the plane their son was flying met with the tragedy just a few minutes after taking off from Multan airport.

“Being a pilot was Ibrar’s passion since childhood. He joined the Multan Flying Club after doing his graduation and passed out with a distinction. His knack for flying won him the job with the national flag carrier.

“My son was a dynamic young man. He was the focus of attention, a source of joy at gatherings of family and friends. He entertained everyone, singing and playing guitar,” related the aggrieved father. His wife could not bring herself up to meeting this reporter.

Among others on board the unfortunate aircraft was also PIA’s station manager in Delhi, Ijaz Ali Chattha. He had served at Multan in the same capacity before leaving for Delhi some two years ago.

“What a cheerful person he was, his huge stock of jokes made everyone around him roll with laughter,” recalled friend Arshad Khan, who is working as traffic assistant at Multan airport.

He said Chattha had just returned after performing umra and was scheduled to visit his family in London.

“The night before the tragedy, we spent memorable, happy moments together. He was as usual at his wittiest best. He was a relaxed man after having settled his family down in the UK.”

Mr Khan told Dawn that both of his late friend’s sons were special children, aged 25 and 20. “However, he leaves behind a 19-year-old daughter who is a normal, intelligent person.”

Ijaz Chatta’s wife and children could not make it to Multan for his last rites. His wife’s brother Aftab Ahmed completed the sad task. Talking to Dawn, Mr Ahmed said he was a fatherly figure for all of his relatives.

Another promising young victim of the tragedy was Unilever Pakistan’s administrator at the company’s regional office in Multan, Tehseen Zahra. Hailing from the backward Muzaffargarh district, Tehseen came of an educated family. Her late father Dr Riaz Magsi had been the medical superintendent of the Muzaffargarh district headquarters hospital.

After completing her BCS, Tehseen worked with a multinational bank for a short stint of six months and then discontinued that job to get a master’s in Political Science.

“She was a very caring person, always there to listen others’ problems and to help them out,” recalled her sister Naureen Zahra, an education-sector coordinator of an NGO operating in southern Punjab.

“Tehseen was so brilliant that our relatives used to say that her brilliance was more than the collective brilliance of her five siblings.”

Naureen was critical of `delayed’ rescue operation. Quoting witnesses, she said even the Civil Aviation fire fighting vehicles reached the site of the crash, only 3km from the airport, after an hour. “Why the authorities have overlooked this lapse.”

The story of yet another victim is no less tragic. A widow and a mother of three children, Dr Humera Ashraf had taken the flight to attend a meeting of a firm with which she was working as a family planning consultant. Her husband had died of cardiac arrest last year. Her children, Saad, nine, Asad, eight, and Amna, five, lost both of their parents within a year.

Dr Ashraf’s mother said that the children had yet to come out of the trauma of their father’s death and now their mother had also gone.

Reacting to the federal cabinet’s decision to ban the operation of Fokker planes for passenger service, Mr Chughtai, father of pilot Ibrar, said: “There have been concerns over the condition of the ageing planes whose spare parts are not available.” He questioned: “Were they waiting for the loss of 45 precious lives to ground the obsolete aircraft?”

The Chughtais are sceptical of the ongoing investigation into the tragedy. “Has there ever been any credible outcome of the inquiries into such fatal accidents in the past?”

The father of the deceased son said he said he had no faith in the so-called investigation. “The meaning of investigation here is nothing but a search for scapegoats; you will see that ultimately the pilots would be accused simply because they cannot come back to defend themselves.”

In her reaction to the decision to ground the Fokker aircraft, Tehseen Zahra’s sister said: “Our governments always need a tragedy to take place before it wakes up.”

She said six months ago she had protested before the PIA authorities at Multan airport after a nightmarish Fokker ride from Islamabad to Multan.

“The outdated planes should have been grounded long before they took people’s lives. I had not imagined in the wildest of my dreams the same plane would take my loving sister away from us.”

Hearing the victims’ families’ sentiments on the continuing operation of Fokker planes, now as freight carriers, one wonders as to what may lie ahead for those who may yet be required to fly the aged fleet.