PIA’s captain and two others issued show-cause notices for overloading

karachi — The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has issued show-cause notices to a pilot and two others officials for loading seven extra passengers on a Karachi-Madinah flight on January 20, in a violation of air safety regulations, sources said on Monday.

PIA spokesman Danyal Gilani did not comment on the development, but said separately that: “Disciplinary action has been taken against all officials concerned”, reports Dawn online

Capt. Anwer Adil, senior purser (air hostess) Hina Turab, and terminal manager Akbar Ali Shah were issued notices for allegedly letting extra passengers travel on jump seats and the cockpit on PIA flight PK-743. The development came after an inquiry committee set up by the airline found the allegations to be true.

“After in-depth investigation... it has been confirmed that passenger[s] travelled on [the] flight are over and above of the aircraft configuration (including jump seats) which is a clear violation of SOP [standard operating procedures] and violation of passenger safety,” read a report signed by Manager Operations Sohail Jaffar Ali.

As per SOPs in cases like these, the report said, the aircraft should be parked again to offload extra passengers “which was not done in this case”.

“Such type of violation/irregularity cannot be ignored in which safety of the passengers is compromised.”

Sources said that Capt. Adil will not be able to operate flights after being issued the notice. The Civil Aviation Authority is also investigating allegations of safety violation against the captain.

Talking to Dawn News, Capt. Adil denied that he allowed extra passengers to travel on jump seats and demanded a transparent inquiry against “whoever allowed passengers on jump seats”.

As many as seven passengers aboard the PIA flight were forced to stand throughout the over threehour flight after the airline boarded excess passengers, a Dawn report had said earlier this week.