Why Look For The Black Box When You Have Saaleh Zaafir?

The Jang Group in general and The News in particular are just so lucky. On their staff they have someone who is not only a fearless and insightful reporter who is never one to shy away from bulldozing his opinions on to the public no matter how whacked out they may seem to those reading or listening, but as it turns out, also an accomplished mechanical engineer, a forensic detective, a flying expert, possessor of Superman-type X-ray vision and a psychic. Imagine getting all these qualities for the price of one salary!

I refer of course to the awesome Muhammad Saleh Zaafir who has humbly revealed all the above-mentioned skills in his piece in The News today as part of his "eye-witness" account of the Airblue crash yesterday. Don't quite believe me? Let me offer you a guide.

The great man himself

The back-page item in The News is titled "I Saw The Plane Just Before Crash", which sounds authentically Mr Zaafir, grammar and all. You may argue that lots of people saw the plane just before the crash, since it was flying low over Islamabad, but then the lots of people do not have the skills that Mr Zaafir possesses.

"I was sitting in the outer veranda of my house in the lap of the Margalla Hills on the fateful moments of Wednesday morning. It was heavily overcast and rain was pouring in, as I heard the boom of a plane flying on exceptionally low altitude parallel to seventh avenue with less speed that was heading towards the hills and I could, in less than a second, imagine that the plane was going to face some devastation because in no manner it was higher than the peaks of lush green hills."

See? Not only is Mr Zaafir able to hear the "boom" of a low flying commercial airliner, he deduces from the sound that the plane is flying "parallel to seventh avenue." Only experience can teach you that. But that is not all. His razor-sharp detective mind takes "less than a second" to "imagine" a devastating end for it. Don't believe for even less than a second that most people who saw the low-flying plane might have feared the same, this is real psychic power.

"Strangely the engine noise was depressed and one could assess that it was flying without required power." 

You have to be in awe of a man, who while chilling on his veranda, is able to detect that the engine of "booming" plane is "without required power." Respect.

"Next second I heard huge bang and as I returned to my room, I came to know about the inevitable crash of the plane. Later, it was revealed that the plane was of a private airline."

Okay, so it seems Mr Zaafir never actually saw the plane, since he only talks about sounds, but that just makes his extra-sensory powers that much more acute. It might also seem that Mr Zaafir's inability to put two and two together - that he needed to return to his room, presumably to catch the news on TV, to figure out what the "huge bang" was all about - betrays some weakness of mind. But you'd be wrong. All it shows is the maturity of a veteran journalist, who does not rush to conclusions. And most psychics focus on the bigger picture, so not getting the tail-markings of the plane is no big deal.

"The planes to be landed at Chaklala airbase must have their approach away from the Faisal Avenue and Faisal Mosque and their direction should be towards Rawalpindi but the ill-fated plane was flying in opposite direction. To my assessment the plan was out of control of the pilot, as he was trying to move away from the city. The Margalla top where the plan crashed is hardly three kilometres from the Presidency, Prime Minister’s House and the Parliament House."

This is where Mr Zaafir reveals his flying expertise. Okay, so he gets a minor fact wrong and commercial airliners do not in fact land at the military Chaklala airbase, but Chaklala is right next to Islamabad airport so it's irrelevant in the larger scheme of things. The point is Mr Zaafir is not only able to diagnose engine problems of flying aircraft from his verandah but also able to peer with his amazing X-ray vision into the cockpit of such aircraft. Incidentally, this Karachi edition report, stupidly cut out a major revelation that did appear in the Islamabad edition of The News. Mr Zaafir was actually able to tell that the pilot had been "overpowered", presumably by a dastardly evildoer. I don't understand why he has not yet been drafted into the official investigation team. He could be like that "empath" Forrest Whitaker character in Species, able to feel things nobody else can see. Thankfully, the Karachi edition did not cut out the implied connection Mr Zaafir makes with political issues. Just a word to the wise, that's always been Mr Zaafir's motto.

"Well placed aviation sources told The News later that the pilot was in constant contact with the Air Traffic Control (ATC) of Chaklala airbase. The radar had throughout been guiding the pilot but it was failed in issuing warning to him that he had entered into a wrong terrain. The radar helped him in avoiding Kahuta but the radar could not detect it heading towards the hills without gaining required altitude. The probe and Black Box recording will establish what was transpired in last conversation of the pilot and the control room."

Mr Zaafir didn't really need to refer to anonymous "well placed aviation sources" for information that basically everyone had already reported directly from the Civil Aviation Authority (minus the Chaklala / Islamabad airport mixup) but I believe this just shows his innate humility. I also think he is being unduly self-effacing by referring to the probe and the black box recordings. We all know that Mr Zaafir already has all the answers.

"The sources say that the pilots who fly to and from Islamabad are always advised to stay away from the Margalla hilltops..."

Now this may sound counter-intuitive to lay readers; that's why we should be glad to have Mr Zaafir's breadth of expertise and of course his incisive sources.

"..and in case they have to fly over the federal capital, they are to essentially fly at least two thousands feet higher than the top. In case the pilot fails to keep away from Kahuta approach, he is required to take right turn over the Rawal Lake or if the turn is on the left, it must be clear of the Margalla Hills. No pilot is supposed to cross the Jinnah Avenue parallel to the Blue Area. The ill-fated plane not only crossed the red line but again it did not assume the required altitude in the area where low flying means death and destruction."

 Further proof, if any were needed, of Mr Zaafir's in-depth knowledge of flying, especially in Islamabad. My only complaint is that our self-effacing eye/ear-witness ends with this feint:

"It is a mind-boggling puzzle for the aviators what forced so experienced pilot to cross the red line and why the radar failed in offering correct guidance to him."

Come on Mr Zaafir, don't tease us at this tragic time. Just tell us what I am sure you already have pieced together on your verandah.

How To Make The News And Other Mistakes

First things first. If ever there had been any doubt about the cretinism of President Asif Ali Zardari's legal and political advisers, surely such doubts must have been laid to rest with what happened yesterday. I mean, you would think that if you knew the military, the judiciary, the opposition and an influential part of public opinion hated your guts, and the Americans were distracted enough by their upcoming surge in Afghanistan not to care too much about covering your ass, you would be a bit more circumspect in your actions, wouldn't you? No such luck with geniuses of the likes of Farooq Naek, Latif Khosa and Babar Awan.

Triumvirate of Legal and Political Genius: (clockwise from top left) Naek, Khosa, Awan

But I guess, advisers can only reflect the level of competence of the person selecting them.

The tangential repercussion of this fiasco on the media has been that two media houses have had wildly different feelings about it. The Jang Group, which had been trying its darnedest to instigate some sort of crisis involving Zardari for quite some time now - and one had only to have followed Geo anchors such as Kamran Khan, Dr S&M and The News' Group Editor Shaheen Sehbai to understand their desperation - must be licking its lips. Only the day before, the Jang Group had filed a suit in the Sindh High Court claiming that the government was trying to victimize it for exposing the president's alleged corruption by cutting off its government advertisements and pressurizing National Bank to call in an allegedly rescheduled loan. Geo had once again begun to run Mr Jeem's whine (last seen during Musharraf's "emergency") about struggling to survive (this despite the fact that Geo continues to be far at the top of all news channel ratings and revenue streams). Zardari and his bunch of geniuses could not have handed the Jang Group a better opportunity to go after him, an opportunity that has obviously been grabbed by both hands.

At the other end of the spectrum is the Daily Times, which after the departure of its founding editor Najam Sethi, has resembled nothing much more than the in-house newsletter of the house of Salman Taseer, the publisher (and of course, the governor of Punjab). Today's paper could have hardly done better to indicate its owner's mood, with a banner heading that said it all. Even the paper's weekend glossy, Sunday, seemed to indicate a sort of depression. It had only 6 pages of photographs dedicated to the wedding of Taseer's son. Compare that to the 11 pages the week before, and the 8 pages the week before that. (But there's still the valima pics to look forward to!)

But in the middle of all this ecstasy and misery, what I really wanted to touch upon was the Filmfare Awards-worthy performance of Jang Group's mediocrity-in-residence (gosh, there are a number of them vying for that title aren't there?) Saleh Zaafir. A reporter never ever accused of being terribly reliable (though he has been accused of being many other things), Mr Zaafir outdid all others by breaking news on Geo that a state of emergency ala November 3, 2007 was about to be declared in the country. He actually began it all by this bit of breathless ranting (he comes in around 12:50 in the first clip and continues up until 00:55 in the second):







Never ones to shy away from milking any sensation to its limits, Geo then proceeded to run "Breaking News" flashes across its screens for the next 30-45 minutes (the news flashes can be seen beginning around 09:30 in the second clip), announcing that "information indicated a state of emergency was about to be declared." No other channel had this information, obviously, because they don't employ Mr Zaafir. But even Information Minister Qamaruzzaman Kaira's rubbishing of the flash (which Samaa TV carried) was not deemed worthy of running on Geo. Geo kept insisting that the presidency was "refusing to confirm or deny" the story, which of course is journalistic shorthand for claiming 'we're actually right and they're hiding something.' It was only when Zardari's spokesman Farhatullah Babar came out to specifically deny the claims, that Geo stopped flashing its 'exclusive' breaking news.

Of course, Mr Zaafir has never taken being proved wrong lying down and he wasn't going to this time either. He then proceeded to write a price on the front page of Jang today, trying to explain how he was not really flying kites. An excerpt from his piece:

"Aiwan-e-sadr ki jaanib se saabiq sadr Pervez Musharraf ki 3 November, 2007 ki tarha emergency nafiz karnay ka faisla kiya ja chuka tha lekin awaam aur media ki jaanib se aanay walay rad-e-amal ne ussay  chaunka diya aur woh musheeraan jo idaaron se takraanay ka mashwara de rahe thhe aur un ke senior jo khatray ka sabab ban saktay thhe woh apnay "aqalmandana mashwaron" se peechhay hat-tay gaye...Zaraaye ka kehna thha ke awaami rad-e-amal ke sabab mulk aik aur 3 November se bach gaya."

('The decision to impose emergency on the lines of former president Pervez Musharraf's November 3, 2007 actions had already been taken in the presidency. But the reaction of the people and the media [emphasis added] to it stunned the presidency, and those advisers who had been advocating a collision with institutions, and their seniors who could have become a source of danger, began to backtrack from their "sagacious advice."... Sources say that the popular reaction [emphasis added] saved the country from another 3 November.')

Keep in mind that nobody else carried the story and aside from causing a lot of confusion and panic, nobody actually reacted to it in any public way. But then, nobody has ever accused Mr Saleh Zaafir of any sort of humility either.