Imran Khan and Aeroflot flight 593

More to it than meets the eye

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, and on the right image of the Airbus A310 that was operating flight 593.

On the evening of 22^nd March 1994 a brand new Airbus A310 operating as flight Aeroflot 593 with 75 passengers and crew on board took off from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport for a fourteen hour flight to Hong Kong. It would not arrive at its destination.

The flight was operated by Russia International Airlines, a subsidiary of the Russian flag carrier Aeroflot. Some four hours into the flight, while flying at 34,000 feet in clear weather, over the Kuznetsk Alatau Mountain chain the flight disappeared from radar screens. It crashed into a hillside shattering the aircraft and killing all on board. No distress call was made by the pilots and no technical problems were reported with the aircraft prior to its departure.

It is extremely rare for a modern airliner to suddenly crash into the ground midflight from cruising altitude. The airline industry wanted to know, as soon as possible, what had happened. And so did Airbus Industries. The A310, at the time, was Airbus’ newest most modern airliner. And the manufacturer was worried.

Fortunately, both the cockpit voice recorder (CVC) and the flight data recorder (FDR) survived the devastating crash. Analysis of the data and the subsequent investigation revealed that the captain of the flight had invited his teenage children into the cockpit during the flight. He then vacated the captain’s seat and let them both sit in it in turn and put their hands on the control column.

The younger child, a girl, did not put any pressure on the control wheel. But the older child, a boy, who took the captain’s seat after his sister, put significant pressure on the control wheel. This initiated a series of events which put the plane into a spiraling dive toward the ground.

During this time the captain managed to get his son out of the pilot’s seat and position himself at the controls once again. From this point on both pilots tried their best to recover from the dive. The FDR shows a series of extreme inputs at the controls in a desperate attempt to recover control. Three minutes and fifteen seconds from the time the captain’s son sat at the controls the aircraft crashed into the ground.

But you will ask: What does this crash have to do with Imran Khan?

It turns out that once the captain of the Aeroflot flight had regained his seat, all he had to do to save the aircraft was to take his hands (and feet) off the controls. The aircraft’s systems and aerodynamic principles would have caused the aircraft to return to level flight.

And this is precisely the tragedy of Imran Khan. When he was ousted from power in a no confidence vote in April 2022. He refused to gracefully accept his dismissal, forced his party members to resign from parliament, and demanded immediate elections.

Worse, is what he did at the provincial level. His party, PTI, with its majorities in the Punjab and KPK assemblies was in control of both of these important provinces. Yet, he ordered his party members to resign from both assemblies thereby relinquishing control over these provinces.

So, had he opted not to do anything (let go of the controls) he would have been a powerful and respected leader of the opposition in the national assembly. And at the same time, he would have been in control of arguably the two most important provinces in Pakistan.

All he had to do was to wait for the next general election scheduled in October 2023. The already unpopular government of PDM led by Nawaz Sharif would have been given more time, read rope, to hang itself. And Mr. Khan would have been reelected with perhaps a resounding majority.

Sadly, Mr. Khan has not displayed the sort of wisdom, maturity and vision one would expect of a senior politician. He has let his ego, some would say arrogance, obscure his judgment. And if evidence is needed of poor judgment, look no further than his recent confrontation with Pakistan’s powerful military establishment.

Politics 101 hammers home the principle that if you want to succeed in politics in Pakistan you need to have the military on your side, or at a minimum to be neutral. Attacking them directly, both verbally, and more recently, as his supporters have done, physically is nothing short of suicidal.

This story is still working its way to a conclusion. But the signs are clear. Mr. Khan has gambled and lost. His career in politics is over. His freedom may even be at risk. Attacks on the military in Pakistan can invite charges of treason.

And just as the pilots of Aeroflot 593 could have saved their airplane by letting go of the controls, Mr. Khan could have regained power in Pakistan if he had opted to do nothing.

That he did not is not just a tragedy for him but for Pakistan as well. For all his failings, Mr. Khan was a bright ray of hope for Pakistan. He is a decent, honest, well-meaning and sincere man. These are qualities that one does not usually come across in Pakistan’s politics.