Karachi: The family members of victims who died in the PIA crash in Karachi a year ago have demanded unconditional payment of accidental insurance.
The bereaved family members were addressing a press conference at Karachi Press Club almost a year after flight PK-8303 from Lahore crashed in a densely populated residential area of Karachi near the airport.
The family members said that they should not be asked to sign any declaration before payment of the insurance claim under which they lost the right to file a case in future against any institution that was later on identified as being responsible for the air tragedy.
The bereaved families said that they wanted to retain such a right as the formal investigation into the air crash tragedy had yet to be completed.
“We shouldn’t be asked to sign any such form as it is our right to lodge the case against the agencies responsible for this tragedy after the truth about it comes to light,” said Azmat Yar Khan, a representative of one of the families who spoke on the occasion.
He said that the insurance money was not an issue for them as they had come forward to ease legal complications encountered by the families to get such compensation.
He said the families should get possession of the belongings of the victims in memory of those lost in the tragedy.
Kanwal Arsalan, who lost her brother in the air crash, lamented that the air traffic control had not informed the captain of the ill-fated PIA flight that its landing gear was not deployed when the plane made its first landing attempt that was later aborted.
She said that the captain of PK-8303 had not been informed about the damage caused to the engines due to the aborted landing attempt as there was no need to take off again to make a second attempt.
She said that action had not been taken against anyone whose errors proved fatal in this case.
The family members demanded that an emergency response centre be established to deal with such air crash tragedies.
