SKETCH OF Dr. IMRAN'S KILLER

LONDON:

Scotland Yard have released an image of a man London police wanted to question over the murder of Dr Imran Farooq in Edgware.

Officers have had no luck in tracking down two men seen battering and stabbing Dr Imran to death outside his home in Green Lane on the evening of September 16.

The 50-year-old founding member of the MQM party, headquartered in High Street, Edgware, was on his way home from work when he was jumped by the two men yards from is front door. 

One suspect is described as Asian, in his late 20s or early 30s, around 5ft 4ins tall and slim build, with piercing eyes a goatee beard and a pointed, pale-skinned face with short dark hair. 

He was wearing a dark coloured baseball cap. 

The second attacker was also Asian, in his 30s, of stocky build and between 5ft 9ins and 5ft 11ins, with short black hair.

Major Pakistan air crashes

May 20, 1965: A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Boeing 707 crashes on its inaugural flight while attempting to land at Cairo airport. The crash killed 124 people.

August 6, 1970: A PIA Fokker F27 turboprop aircraft crashes while attempting to take off from Islamabad in a thunderstorm, killing all 30 people onboard.

December 8, 1972: A PIA Fokker F27 crashes in Rawalpindi. All 26 people onboard are killed in the crash.

November 26, 1979: A PIA Boeing 707 bringing home Haj pilgrims from Saudi Arabia crashes shortly after taking off from Jeddah airport. The crash killed 156 people.

October 23, 1986: A PIA Fokker F27 crashes while landing in Peshawar. Thirteen of the 54 people on board were killed in the incident.

August 17, 1988: A US-made Hercules C-130 military aircraft crashes near Bahawalpur, killing the then president General Muhammad Ziaul Haq and 30 others. Senior Pakistan military officials and the US ambassador to Pakistan were also among the dead.

August 25, 1989: A PIA Fokker carrying 54 people disappears after leaving Gilgit. The wreckage is never found.

September 28, 1992: A PIA Airbus A300 crashes into a cloud-covered hillside on approach to the Nepalese capital Kathmandu after the plane made a steep descent. The crash killed 167 people.

February 19, 2003: A Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Fokker F27 crashes in fog-shrouded mountains near Kohat, killing air force Chief, Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali. His wife and 15 other people were also killed.

February 24, 2003: A chartered Cessna 402-B carrying Afghan Mines and Industries Minister Juma Mohammad Mohammadi, four Afghan officials, a Chinese mining executive and two Pakistani crew crashes into the Arabian Sea near Karachi. All aboard were killed in the crash.

July 10, 2006: A PIA Fokker F27 bound for Lahore crashes into a field and bursts into flames shortly after takeoff from Multan. Forty-one passengers and four crew members were killed in the incident. afp

Chronology of crashes

887 people died in 34 plane crashes in country

By Moayyed Jafri

LAHORE: The unfortunate flight – Airblue Airbus-321 – was the 34th aircraft to crash in Pakistan since 1947, raising the total deaths caused by aircraft crashes to 887.

A cargo aircraft Avro 691 Lancastrian of Onze-Air was the first to go down with four crew members on board, none of whom survived. An error in judgment on the part of the pilot in allowing the aircraft to stall while landing caused the crash.

On November 26, 1948, Pakistan Airways Douglas DC-3 crashed shortly after taking off. The omission of a sealing washer on the carburettor fuel filter of the port engine caused this crash, resulting in the death 16 passengers and 4 crew members on board. Another DC-3 crashed on December 12, 1949, at Jangshahi, 30 miles north of Karachi Airport due to navigation error killing 26 on board. December 30, 1949, Douglas C-54A-DO of the Bharat Airways crashed at Comilla, while attempting a crash landing. None of the 7 on board survived. On August 26, 1952, Bristol 170 Freighter of the – Pakistan Air Force crashed at Khewra spelling doomsday for all 18 on board as a result of engine failure. DH 106 Comet 1A of the Canadian Pacific Airlines caused the death of 11 people on March 3, 1953 in Karachi, when the aircraft overran the runway during takeoff. Douglas C-47B of the PIA, struck Lash Golath Mountain at Jalkot while enroute on February 25, 1956 killing 3 crew members.

Twenty-four died in the crash in former East Pakistan in 1957 when the PIA DC-3 crashed onto tidal flats off Charlakhi Island during a storm. Near the Bay of Bengal, Pakistan International Airlines’ Viscount-815 crashed due to the complacency of the pilot on August 14, 1959 in Karachi. This pilot error cost 21 lives. A Douglas C-47A of the Indian Airlines on July 15, 1962 fell to nature as a vulture crashed through the cockpit window and killing two including the co-pilot, near Lahore.

Douglas C-47 of the PIA crashed near Lowari Pass on March 26, 1965, 22 out of the 26 on board lost their lives. A Lockheed C-130B Hercules of the PAF hit a mountain during its flight on July 15, 1966, killing 10 army men. The crashing of Lockheed Martin L-100 of the PAF caused the demise of 22 people after encountering turbulence, possibly leading to a break-up of the aircraft on April 3, 1968.

Fokker F-27 of the PIA crashed into terrain after takeoff in thunderstorms and strong winds on August 6, 1970 near Islamabad, leaving 30 dead. An Antonov AN-22 of a private operator crashed near Paranah, during an emergency landing with engines on fire on December 19, 1970. On December 30, 1970, a Fokker F-27 of PIA, crashed and burned on landing, consequently burning alive seven people out of the 35 on board. Another Fokker F-27 crashed near Pattian on October 8, 1965 killing four. The Fokker F-27 disasters continued as on December 8, 1972 poor weather conditions resulted in the death of 26 people near Rawalpindi.

Fokker F-27 Friendship 600 continued to be accident-prone as on October 23, 1986, 13 of the 54 on board the PIA flight from Lahore to Peshawar, lost their lives. The same aircraft, Fokker F-27, of PIA, on August 25, 1989 crashed into Himalayan mountains enroute from Gilgit to Islamabad. None of the 54 on board survived.

On August 17, 1988, the Lockheed C-130B of the PAF crashed shortly after taking off from Bahawalpur 60 miles near the Indian border. Act of sabotage. Detonation of a low-level explosive device or incapacitating gas was suspected by the investigators. US ambassador to Pakistan, Arnold Raphael, 45, and Gen Zia, 64, killed. A recent report states that the accident was caused by the failure of the elevator control system due to a mechanical failure.

A flight of Afghan Airlines from Kandahar to Herat was forced to return to Kandahar on January 13, 1998, because of poor weather when it crashed into a mountain 70 miles north of Quetta, causing the death of 51 people.

A military Fokker F-27 crashed into a mountainside in a remote region near the town of Kohat, about 250 km northwest of Islamabad on February 20, 2003 due to pilot’s premature descent, 17 people lost their lives due to this adventurism of the pilot.

A Boeing B-737-200 of the Afghan Airways and the 104 passengers on board died on February 3, 2005 when the aircraft, unable to land at Kabul because of a blizzard, tried to reach Peshawar, but crashed.

A PIA Fokker F-27 plane lost an engine during takeoff, struck power lines and crashed into a field bursting into flames on July 10, 2006, near Multan, resulting in the death of 41 passengers and 4 crew members. A military helicopter crashed enroute while transporting troops near Peshawar on July 3, 2009 killing 26 passengers. All 152 people aboard the Air blue flight from Karachi to Islamabad, were killed on July 28, 2010, when the plane crashed in the Margalla Hills, making it the worst commercial aircraft disaster in the country’s history. The News report

No survivors in Karachi plane crash

A privately-owned aircraft carrying 20 oil company officials crashed in suburb of Karachi on Friday and a military spokesman said there were no survivors. "The plane has been totally gutted and there are no survivors," lieutenant Colonel Noor Alam who supervised rescue operation told reporters. The plane was believed to be carrying about 20 people, mostly Pakistanis, he said, adding that bodies have not yet been identified. It was not immediately clear if there were any foreigners on board, he said. So far, 12 bodies, gutted completely and unable to be identified, have been recovered and efforts to recover the remaining are underway, Noor Alam said. Reports from CAA authorities confirmed that at least 20 people were on board who have been feared dead as the wreckage caught fire after crash. Accident took place at 7:15am. Rescue teams, police, airport security force, ambulances arrived on the accident site and kicked off rescue and relief operations. Plane crashes away from residential area. Thick smoke was seen emitting from plane while firefighters tried hard to bring fast raging flames under control. The airplane was of a private company and had been chartered by a US company working on an oil field in Karachi. Two crewmembers and a technician were also on plane. The crash took place due to engine failure as the pilot tried to contact control tower complaining there was flaw in one engine of plane, reports said. CAA official Pervez George said the aircraft was carrying company employees to an oil field at Bhit Shah in the southern province of Sindh, of which Karachi is the capital. "It was a small plane and there were about 20 people on board. It was a privately-owned aircraft belonging to an oil company," George told Geo TV. "Soon after they left, they contacted the airport control tower and said there was a problem in one of the engines. The plane was directed to return and soon after it crashed," he said.

Pakistan has a history of aviation disasters that have killed hundreds, dating back to the 1950s.

On August 1, 1957, 24 people were killed when a Pakistan International Airlines flight crashed in the Bay of Bengal. The next year, over 20 people died when a PIA flight crashed in New Delhi.

1965 was one of the deadliest years for Pakistan International Airlines. Two flights crashed, one in the Lowery Pass, which killed 22 people. The other, was an inaugural flight that was headed to London, and crashed 12 miles away from the Cairo airport. According to a report in the Evening Independent newspaper, the Karachi-London flight was scheduled to pick up 52 passengers from Cairo. Of the 126 people on board, only six survived. Among the dead were 93 Pakistanis, while the six survivors were also Pakistani.

The report stated, “Captain Akbar Aly Khan, pilot of the four engine jet, reported engine trouble and a fire in the landing gear minutes before the crash.”

In 1970, a Fokker plane crashed soon after take-off in Islamabad, killing 30 passengers. In 1972, another Fokker plane crashed in Rawalpindi, and all 26 on board died.

On November 26, 1979, one of the worst aviation disasters in the country’s history occurred. A PIA flight crashed on take-off in Taif in Saudi Arabia, killing 156 people. The passengers included 110 pilgrims returning from Mecca. Sarasota Journal quoted a Radio Pakistan report that said that the “first indication of an emergency came when the plane’s pilot radioed ‘there was smoke in the cabin and cockpit’ and shortly after the captain called out ‘Mayday’.”

Two more Fokker crashes occurred in the 1980s. One crash, that took place in Peshawar on October 13, 1986, killed 13, while the other, on August 25, 1989, killed 54. The latter crashed in Gilgit and hikers reported seeing a low-flying plane in the area.

The October 13 crash was reportedly caused by wedding celebrations in Peshawar, according to the New York Times. The NYT quoted Dawn as saying that the crash “may have been the result of gunfire that hit the aircraft or distracted the pilot” and that “seven bridegrooms who were celebrating their marriages that night were arrested in Peshawar.”

The biggest aviation disaster to date was the PIA flight that crashed in the Nepal capital of Kathmandu in September 1992 and killed all 167 people on board. The plane burst into flames as it was about to land at the Kathmandu airport. The dead included 37 Britons and 3 Americans. A report in the Herald Scotland at the time said, “Flight PX268, en route to the Nepalese capital from Karachi, was carrying scores of European holidaymakers, many of them backpackers and members of climbing teams.”

The last major airline disaster was in 2006, when a 27-year-old Fokker plane crashed into a wheat field in Multan two minutes after taking off. The same year, Pakistan International Airlines discontinued use of Fokker planes. The Associated Press quoted a government official saying that “the planes were still airworthy and the decision to stop using them for passenger flights was made to allay people’s safety fears.”

Other airlines have also seen plane crashes within Pakistani territory, including a Soviet (now Russian) Aeroflot cargo plane that crashed in Karachi, killing 9 people.