Strange conspiracy theories surrounding Airblue Airbus 321 plane crash.

Though this post has alot of politics in it, it still is posted in my aviation blog since it concerns an aviation incident.

An strange article has been written and spread across the internet regarding the crash of the Airblue Airbus 321 on July 28, 2010.
The article is found on many websites such as this one.
The ideas in it seem to be far fetched and seem somewhat obvious from it's flawed content. Below is the linked article quoted with my comments/corrections.

Islamabad, Pakistan (Veterans Today exclusive). Informed sources in the Government of Pakistan have told Veterans Today that they are developing “hard evidence” indicating the Jet Blue Airbus 320 that crashed July 28th outside Islamabad was a terrorist hijacking tied to rogue American security forces operating inside that country.

Firstly, the name of the airline is Airblue. Jet Blue is the name of a private airline in America which has been confused with Pakistan's Airblue due to the similarity of their names.
These careless mistakes make theories like these look less credible.

Secondly the plane was an Airbus 321 not Airbus 320. The Airbus 321 is a longer, stretched version of the Airbus 320.

Sources indicate that the plane crash was an unsuccessful hijacking attempt intended to crash into the nuclear weapons facility at Kahuta, outside Islamabad. Such an attack may have been blamed on India and would likely have led to retaliation which could easily have escalated to a nuclear exchange between these two nations that have spent decades at each other’s throats.

Exactly which hijacker would sacrifice his/her own life to achieve their goals? The only hijacker I can think of to do such as thing would be a Tamil militant from Sri Lanka or a radical Islamist militant. The Tamil Tigers are known for sending their members on suicide bombing missions.
If I'm not mistaken, the cases of suicide bombings by Tamil Tiger militants outnumber the suicide attacks by Islamists worldwide, though I'm not sure.

I would rule out Islamists as they would not carry out a suicide mission against weapons that cannot be used against them by the Pakistani military due to the risk of nuclear leak as a result of such action.
The Islamists best targets are government facilities and public infrastructure.

Suspicions were raised inside Pakistan’s military and intelligence organizations when American military contractors employed by Blackwater/XE showed up on the scene immediately after the crash, seizing the black box and “other materials.” There is no confirmation that parachutes or electronic equipment had been removed when Blackwater/Xe security relinquished control of the crash scene to Pakistani investigators.

This whole Blackwater/XE presence in Pakistan is a paranoia that seems to be spread by rumors is now becoming an "explanation" for every major accident in the country.

Royal Television in Islamabad, owned by the brother of the head of Pakistan’s powerful JI (Jamate Islami), the Islamic political party, has reported that investigations are underway tying American based contractors to the planning of the attack.

Jamate Islami seems like another fundamentalist party and it's well known that the Islamists exaggerate the involvement of Western governments and agencies in incidents without evidence. If this claim is coming from them it's hard to believe.

Pakistan’s ISRP (Inter-Services Public Relations) has failed to confirm this but private sources indicate that an active investigation of these allegations is, not only underway but has established ties between an American group and the hijackers.

These private sources make these claims sound even less believable. Further more where is the evidence or proof that there was a a Blackwater/XE unit at the scene? Any photos or video clips or equipment left behind?

Military and intelligence officials inside Pakistan, in concert with the American embassy, are withholding all official details of the investigation and are likely to continue doing so.

This paragraph alone shows the bias and lack of credibility of the article. No evidence, no clues.

This same facility had been the subject of an armed penetration by American contractors, believed to be employed by the State Department, in 2009. Four Blackwater employees, armed and possessing explosives were arrested outside the Kahuta nuclear facility in 2009. The four, driving a Jeep 4×4 and possessing advanced surveillance and jamming equipment of Israeli manufacture, were intercepted 1.5 miles from the Kahuta nuclear facility.

Why was there no full coverage of this incident? This is only another unproven rumor.

The four spoke fluent Pushtu and were dressed in a manner as to resemble Taliban fighters. The order for their release, given by Minister of the Interior Rehman Malik, is an issue of considerable controversy between the civilian government in Pakistan and the powerful military.

Again why no sources? Why no evidence or documentation of this incident?

The passenger jet with 152 on board slammed into a hillside in what was believed to be Pakistan’s most serious air crash. At least 2 Americans were believed to be on board but, a month later, the US Embassy in Islamabad has left this unconfirmed. Reports received today, however, confirm that at least 5 Americans, military contractors said to be employed by Xe, may also have been on the craft but could not be identified as they had been traveling in local garb and had boarded with false identification.

Which reports? Why no citation at least if not any links? And an A320 cannot carry up to 150 passengers, that is the average passenger load for the A321.

Xe is an American based military and intelligence contracting firm formerly known as Blackwater and has been the subject of considerable controversy for activities inside Pakistan.

Which I have already covered in another post of mine linked above.

Sources indicate that the attackers stormed the cockpit in a hijacking attempt. The pilot is said to have jammed the flight controls, careening the Airbus 320 and all aboard into a hillside rather than allowing the plane to be used in a “9/11″ type attack inside Pakistan or flown into Indian air space for a repeat of the 2008 Mumbai attack.

Pakistan has, at times in error, referred to American contractors employed by the Departments of Defense, State or the Central Intelligence Agency as Blackwater. However, it is believed the majority of such employees are, in fact, members of that organization or is derivative, Xe.

Since when do American contractors sell their own lives? Since when are American contractors Islamists who are willing to sacrifice their lives for a cause they believe in?
Again where is the evidence if any? Have there been cases of XE employees carrying out suicide missions? If so which ones? And again the plane was an Airbus 321 not Airbus 320.
Here are pictures of a jetblue A320 (click on images to enlarge):


And an airblue A321:


The same group, often criticized for irregularities in Iraq, has been contracted by the Central Intelligence Agency to operate Predator drones inside Pakistan, operations that have resulted in a significant number of civilian deaths and said by political leaders of several factions to do little but recruit terrorists.

According to sources these predator drones are operated by the CIA themselves, why would they need XE to do it?

My conclusive belief of this article is that it promotes a conspiracy theory with such inaccuracy that the article itself seems to be a conspiracy theory.
By that I mean the article seems to be fabricated and seems to deliberately contain mistakes and unbelievable theories that it's almost meant to make other conspiracy theories look silly.

Abolishing class division on certain flights

Knowing PIA's extremely high fares due to it's financial losses, many people choose to fly a foreign airline when traveling abroad.
Also on many of PIA's flights, many of the classes are empty (ie first class) due to expensive sales on most of these cabin classes.

A good solution in my mind would be for not just PIA, but airlines worldwide to gain more passengers would be to offer short haul flights without any class division.
For example, a flight from Karachi to the Gulf could be without a class division and a standard ticket price for every passenger.

On long haul flights, a class division is appreciated by the high paying passengers; however those willing to pay less can use a no class division flight which will be profitable for both the airline and the passengers as there will be a standard ticket price and most of the seats taken up.

This proposed practice should be put to test atleast on some short haul flights to see if it works before trying it on long haul flights.

Pakistani politicians should charter PIA planes for transport

Those familiar with the politics of Pakistani aviation should know the Pakistani aviation market is not in the best condition.
But of all that, the national airline, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is in the worst financial situation and always requires a huge injection of money from the government to keep it alive.

Pakistan's politicians regularly buy airline tickets from Gulf Airliners as they offer cheaper fares than PIA.
At other times the government members use their own planes for transport.

All this is at the expense of the tax payer as far as I know and at the same time the government is spending plenty of it's budget to keep PIA alive.
So that's the combined cost of government transport as well as keeping the national airline alive.

Instead of paying for two things, the Pakistani government should take advantage of PIA's charter service.
This provides the financial advantage of giving PIA a profit at the same time not having to pay the cost of government transport planes including fuel, maintenance and crew.

If chartering PIA planes can cover the cost giving the airline a sizable income and at the same time provide transport for the government which already has it's own share of costs, two birds can be killed with one stone.

The most advantageous type of charter is going on routes already served by PIA and allowing the return flight to carry on as a normal scheduled route.
As an example, prime minister Gilani traveled to Frankfurt for a conference using the Pakistani government's Airbus 310-300 (now part of the Pakistani Air force fleet).

Instead of using the Air Force plane, Gilani and his other government officials could have charted a PIA flight to Frankfurt and allowed the plane to return to Pakistan as a regular PIA flight.

Another example is Pakistani politicians flying to Saudi Arabia for Hajj or Umrah trips. They can charter flights from PIA and allow the flights to return to Pakistan, carrying regular passengers.

Some people may object that the travel of regular people may be disrupted/delayed due to politicians chartering PIA planes.
But when people look at how much of the national budget may be saved each year, it may change their minds.

The other thing is that passengers who cannot find a seat availability on a certain date because it's taken up have to wait patiently until the next available flight(s)- and they do so without complaining.

So why in this case would one complain? If politicians have a scheduled flight to a certain destination and the date announced a months in advance, people can book their tickets accordingly.

Routes not served by PIA can be served by the government owned aircraft or served by PIA planes which are not serving on regular passenger flights, such as the Boeing 747s which are saved for hajj or high season travel.

Perhaps my proposal is not achievable and does not save costs, but as far as I can see it's a completely realistic and profitable idea.
And if it's not, then I'm sure there are other ideas to give PIA a revenue without spending so much from the national budget.

Strange conspiracy theories surrounding the Polish presidential plane crash.

I've read what seems to be a conspiracy theory on a website which claims there was no Instrument Landing System on this airforce base that the plane was due to land on.

This was a town of a few hundred thousand people. If so, then the useage of ILS is unlikely. What the conspiracy theories have also stated is that this base was in use for training fighter pilots and ask why it wouldn't have an ILS.

I'm no aviation exprert and do not have my private pilot's liscence (PPL) yet, but I have a great deal of knowledge in the field of aviation.
The use of an ILS system, is often only used in major cities of a country. If an extremly mountainious airport such as Skardu in Northern Pakistan has no ILS (atleast to my knowledge) why should people expect this base to be equipped with an ILS?

Especially when airports in Northern Pakistan are in extremly rough terrian aand require extreme skill and experience to land in. Most international pilots would never be able to land in Northern Pakistan.
Pakistani aviation laws require local certification to land in the Northern areas of the country, a region amongst the most difficult to land in.

So the question is if there's no ILS in Northern Pakistan, why should conspiracy theorists expect this airforce base to have one?

Sobotage? Unlikely. A release in the analysis of data recovered from the crash may give a clue to the cause, though some conspiracy theoirsts might reject it.

Airlines in Pakistan could possibly benifit from airshows.

The above videos are clips of an airshow in Montreal, Canada. It seems that even Canadian private airliners are participating in these aviation shows. Could the same work for Pakistan?

Pakistan's airlines, especially PIA the national airline is suffering financial problems and loosing passengers to Gulf careers.
Even their duty free products are hardly purchased on long haul flights at least from what I've seen.

Most Pakistani passengers do not seem to be interested in flying their country's airliners and usually opt for Gulf careers.
Perhaps a way to regain this interest instead of paying for advertisement, PIA can collaborate with Pakistani private airliners to organize public airshows to regain interest in the airliners and also a chance to sell off their unwanted duty free products such as posters, calendars, scale models and others.

The airshow must be paid for by those who attend, to cover operating costs by the airlines as well as gain them some profit and it could seriously generate more public interests in the airliners.

Opinions and ideas on PIA's latest livery.

Click here to see PIA's latest livery on their Boeing 777-240ER

According to reports on Pakistani Aviation forums, PIA's management opted for this livery to avoid criticism of it's provincial design and to save costs that the provincial liveries apparently produce.

PIA's claim supposedly was that the provincial tails consist of expensive stickers that were too expensive to maintain and also to replace in case of any maintainance needed on the tails.

If this is the case, I support the removal of the provincial tails, but the replacing livery should at least be creative and in good shape, which I do not see in this newly adopted livery.
This livery is in a way a repeat of PIA's livery used back in the 1980s as seen in this model photo.

Repeating a livery from an older generation is a big mistake in my opinion for an airline. Additionally, it is said that PIA has been hiring professional artists to design their latest liveries.

Not only is this a waste of money by PIA, but it also does not pay off as these liveries are very plain. There is no need to waste money on professional designers, especially when they offer lack of imagination and when the internet is filled with modified airliner photos made by enthusiast on aviation forums as well as sites like http://www.cardatabase.net/modifiedairlinerphotos/

There are countless liveries which look decorative while saving fuel and other costs at the same time.
All PIA could do is to ask aviation enthusiasts and artists to come forward and offer the best livery their imaginations can produce. In return they can be offered a prize for the winner such as a model in their livery.

It would sure save them plenty of money instead of hiring 'professional' designers who seem to lack any imagination.

Though I did not make the modified picture posted below, I strongly believe this is a much better replacement than PIA's most recently adopted livery: (click on image to enlarge)

Conservation aviation laws needed in Pakistan and the world.

For the improvement of the global environment and to conserve precious fuel, the civil aviation authorities around the world need to adopt conservation laws.

For instance in my flight school where we fly general aviation planes, the school now provides fuel testers that filter all the particles before pouring the fuel sample back into the fuel tank. Normally, fuel testers do not come in filters and the fuel samples are thrown away once checked.

On the long run this is a waste of money and fuel. If the Civil Aviation of Pakistan were to adopt a law enforcing all aircraft be inspected pre-flight using fuel testers with filters, a lot of fuel and money can be saved.

Knowing the high fuel prices Pakistan is sometimes hit with and with the heavy consumption of fuel, this can be a good measure in conservation. This law should not only be adopted in Pakistan, but world-wide.