Every time an airplane flies low over Gulshan-e-Iqbal, a shudder runs down the spine of Nasir Sultan. Living in the Town's Dalmia locality for the past ten years had made him accustomed to the sound of jet engines. However, all that changed after two air crashes in the vicinity in a span of just one month. He feels a calamity is always imminent now.

It's hard remembering how many times he has enjoyed the sight of planes descending toward the airport while sitting on the terrace, sipping a cup of tea with his wife. But the scene of raging flames, people shouting and the violent blaring of ambulance sirens is fresh in his memory.

The Russian airline Sun Ways' IL-76 aircraft crashed only a five-minute drive from his home in the wee hours of November 28. "There was smoke everywhere and a rush of hundreds of people. Everyone was trying to get into the restricted area," he recalled.

The Ilyushin freighter went down in a naval locality a few minutes after taking off from Jinnah International Airport. Eleven people, including eight crew members and three construction workers, were killed in the accident. Luckily, it crashed on under-construction houses of an otherwise heavily populated residential area.

Exactly 23 days earlier, a small 19-seat aircraft of a private charter airline had crashed few kilometers from the airport. Soon after the JS Air's Beech 1900 took off, the pilot reported engine failure. The plane made a U-turn for the runway, but plunged down in a cantonment area. All 21 people onboard were killed.

Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) officials say there is no common link between these two accidents or the crash of the Airblue aircraft in Islamabad on July 28. But the way the situation was handled by CAA-- the regulator of airlines and airports in Pakistan-- leaves many unanswered questions.

From leaving the crash side unsecured to not communicating with the family members, all standard operating procedures (SOPs) for such incidents were ignored. As a matter of fact, aircraft accident experts say that the CAA does not have any SOPs to deal with such situations.

Since the Airblue crash in the Margalla Hills, near Islamabad, the CAA has made no effort to pacify the passengers using the country's airspace. The newly appointed Director General Nadeem Khan Yousufzai, himself a PIA pilot, has avoided the media at every forum.

The indifference on the part of CAA has left many unanswered questions and fanned controversies: Why was the Airblue flight not permitted to land at Chaklala airport on its schedule time? Why would an experienced pilot take the plane out of route in bad weather? Why did the JS Air's pilot fail to land the aircraft on its belly? And in case of the Russian airline, what was it even doing in Pakistan?

Since the IL-76 crash, the CAA has grounded four airplanes of the same make and owned by vague operators. "We checked and found that these aircraft did not carry proper documentation," said Pervez George, the CAA spokesman.

"There are almost seven daily inbound flights of such freighters from Afghanistan. They make a technical stop at Karachi airport for refueling and then fly off to countries in Africa," he said.

However, he could not say why the CAA reacted after the crash or what action was being taken against the local agents dealing with these little known airlines.

The soviet-era IL-76 aircraft have a bad track record. Sixty of these freighters have crashed in recent years and are available in market on cheap rates. CAA says that as per international standards it does not check the cargo planes not registered with it.

On the other hand, causes of all the three air crashes are under investigation. Led by CAA's Safety Investigation Board President Khawaja A. Majeed, the select team of investigators is working frantically to put the pieces together.

"I cannot say when we will be able to finalize the report of even the Airblue crash," said an official who is part of investigation team. "We were already tied up and now these two accidents have really stretched our resources."

From the day, when the Airblue passenger aircraft crashed killing all 152 people onboard, stark loopholes have become visible in the operations of the CAA.

"The crash site on the hills was not secured for two days," said a source close to the investigation process. "Can you imagine that body parts were left to be eaten by stray dogs!"

The composition of the investigation team mostly includes officials of the CAA, which is a party to all the incidents. Despite repeated public outbursts to form an independent inquiry board, nothing has happened in that regard.

Already, blunders have been committed by the investigators. The black box of the Airblue's Airbus-321 was taken to France for decoding. The team returned without any analyses of its own.

While investigation goes on here, Airbus, the European aircraft manufacturer, was quick to release a global communiqué stating nothing was found wrong with its plane.

The Chief Operating Officer of Airblue Shahid Khaqan Abbasi insists that Pakistani aircraft are much safer to fly with than many other international airlines. "CAA has been following very strict procedures since past few years. The regulatory requirements for carriers are very tough."

Even though, according to travel agents, the passenger air traffic on domestic routes has risen from lows once again, Abbasi's pacification will not satisfy those who have lost their family victims.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader and the second wealthiest parliamentarian, has been accused of being too slow to address the relatives of his passengers.

"No one called from the Airblue office to tell me about the crash," said 44-year-old-year old Junaid Hamid, who lost his wife. "There was no banner, no signboard to guide us when we reached Karachi airport. We booked the flight at our own expense. Airline officials didn't even have the courtesy to console us."

In the absence of any SOPs, there was complete mayhem at the Karachi airport on the day of the crash. As family members rushed to reach Islamabad, there were not enough seats available.

Syed Naseem Ahmed, an aircraft accident specialist, said the CAA has no system in place to deal with a panic situation. "Most of the times, the CAA relies on army and air force for the search and rescue operation, which is not wrong but then what about its role as a commercial aviation regulator?"

The AirBlue crash is the first in Pakistan's aviation history involving a big private airline, he said. Since 1953, there have been 23 major accidents in which around 1000 people have lost their lives, he said.

The fact that Airblue could not immediately arrange an aircraft for the families of the victims is another indicator of the poor health of aviation industry. There are not enough aircraft! Airblue is left with just four aircraft.

The other private airliner Shaheen Air has 11 aircraft. But the monopoly of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on the domestic market leaves little room for smaller competitors to grow.

Aviation industry officials point to the structure of aviation regulators for so many failures. CAA, even though it is the regulator, comes under the supervision of the Defence Ministry, which also has its minister as chairman of PIA.

 The politically motivated hiring in CAA, like that of Nadeem Yousufzai, who remains on the payroll of PIA, leaves a question mark on independence of the regulator. Frequent management changes are made in CAA and promotions of the competent officials remains a dream.

Infightings of managements of CAA and PIA with their unions are one aspect of this degradation. All the problems summed up, when a PIA flight with 12 dead bodies of the Airblue crash onboard, was delayed for 10 hours -- because the pilots were on a go slow strike even then!

July 28

Airblue Plane Crash (Airbus A-321)

1 One of the worst aviation disasters in Pakistan's history. The crash resulted in death of 152 people on board including six crew members.

2 Air traffic controllers reportedly lost contact with the flight crew around 09:43am due to dense fog and heavy monsoon rain. Yet the case is still under investigation.

3 The plane, which had taken off from Karachi, went down in Margalla Hills near Islamabad.

4 Flight ABQ-202 was asked to delay landing at the Islamabad airport as the airport was busy.

5 Twelve passengers did not show up for the flight.

6 The plane hit a vertical 90 degree cliff, which made the rescue operations very difficult.

7At least 19 bodies were never found.

November 5

JS Air Plane Crash (Beech 1900 aircraft)

1 All 21 people on board were killed.

2 The plane crashed shortly after the take-off at about 7:13 am

3 The pilot figured out the engine failure and reported too but the plane crashed before emergency landing. Case under investigation.

4 The Jahangir Siddiqui (JS) Air flight was chartered by a Italian oil and gas company ENI in Pakistan

5 It crashed few kilometers from the Karachi airport on the early morning.

November 28

Russian Cargo Plane Crash (Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft)

1 Eleven people have been reported killed including eight crew members and three construction workers.

2 The plane, owned by an airline called Sun Ways Airlines, went down on under-construction buildings in a naval colony at around 2:00 a.m.

3 The flight came from the UAE and was en route to Sudanese capital, Khartoum

4 After the incident, Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) grounded four aircraft of the same make, because their documentations were not complete- The action came after the disaster!

5 Case still under investigation

It is the night when the fate of every Muslim is decided for the next 12 months. Shab-e-Baraat, the night of forgiveness, fell on July 28, 2010. And it was unusual for Shireen Lodhi, 51, to leave the prayer mat that night and walk into her son's room.

"She was not feeling too good and kept on saying something seemed wrong," Haris Saeed Lodhi, recalled. "My mother was supposed to fly to Islamabad the next morning to attend the engagement ceremony of her niece."

Haris asked her to cancel the flight and attend the wedding function instead. "But she insisted. Now, I wish somehow I could have made her stay for a little longer."

What happened in the morning could not be fate written by God. It was, as Haris says, sheer disregard for human dignity on the part of the authorities. Shireen Lohdhi was among the 152 people who were killed in the crash of Airblue flight ED-202.

"I was the first one to reach PIMS (Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences) at 3:00pm and half an hour later, the bodies started to arrive there," he said. "Even getting in the hospital was a struggle. I couldn't have waited. I used some NGO's card to get in."

Once inside, the situation was beyond his imagination. Body parts were being carried in blood-dripping bags. There were no shrouds to cover the dead who were in one piece. The parts were being tilted from the bags like garbage.

"This was all happening in a PIMS hall. There were only two doctors. I kept shouting for a mask but no one was there to help me out," Haris said. "One by one, I started opening the bags to find the remains of my mother."

Finally, when he managed to recognise the clothes of his mother, a member of the hospital's staff asked him to put the body parts himself in a wooden coffin. "Can you imagine? I put the remains of my mother myself in the coffin? Then desperately waited for nails to seal it and a marker to put her name over it?"

The trauma of the relatives did not end there. Finding space in the morgue was a problem at PIMS and only well-connected people were adjusted. Even 18 hours after the crash, Airblue, CAA and other authorities were not able to make any arrangements.

The PIA flight PK-301, which was supposed to fly 12 bodies to Karachi from Islamabad, at 11:00am on July 29, took off 10 hours later at 9:00pm. "Can't the government have arranged some other pilots? Is this nation so short on resources?"

The biggest regret of the families who spoke to Kolachi is that no one from Airblue even called or sent a condolence letter. "This was the minimum courtesy they could have shown," said Sara Tariq who lost her father.

A lot of promises were made for swift compensation but the families of Airblue victims have not seen a single penny, she said.

Meanwhile, the two recent air crashes have terrified the people in the vicinity. Muhammad Adnan, a resident of Dalmia, where the Russian cargo plane crashed, said that Russian cargo aircraft's accident has made everyone fearful in the area.

"I never imagined that plane accidents could recur like this. I keep on thinking what if another plane crashes and I am killed. What what will become of my wife and children?"

The crash also damaged the houses and the flora in the area. A maid of a house, which has been partially burned, says that it is a miracle their lives were saved.

"We were in Hyderabad when the plane crashed near our house. If we would have been home, someone would definitely have gotten hurt as the debris flew and hit several houses."