General Zia-ul-Haq’s plane crash due to mechanical problem: a report


LONDON, Aug 16 (APP)-The plane crash in Bahawalpur desert twenty years ago which killed former Pakistan President General Zia-ul-Haq along with the US Ambassador Arnold Raphael and spawned several conspiracies theories has now been blamed on the mechanical problem, says a report in ‘The Times.’

According to the daily, American, Soviet, Indian and even Israeli intelligence agents were among those blamed for sabotaging the PAF C-130 Hercules plane.

The Times has uncovered a far less complicated explanation. According to US investigators, a mechanical problem, known to be relatively common with the C-130 military transport aircraft, was to blame.

“There were a lot of conspiracy theories and there still are, understandably in that part of the world,” Robert Oakley, who took over as US Ambassador to Pakistan after the crash and helped to handle the politically fraught investigation, told The Times. “

Washington sent a team of US Air Force officers to assist the Pakistanis in the investigation. The two sides reached sharply different conclusions.

Mrs Nancy Ely-Raphel,Ambassador’s widow and Brigadier-General Wassom’s wife, Judy, were both told by US investigators that the crash was caused by a mechanical fault.

“It seems there was a mechanical failure for a C-130 in Colorado and the same thing happened,” Mrs Ely-Raphael said. “A C-130 had gone into gyrations in the air over Colorado. It was not as close to the ground. They pulled it out.

“It was the steering mechanism, is the way he described it to me. It did not crash but it went through these gyrations up in the air and the pilot pulled it out. I had always thought C130s were the workhorses of the air. I was quite surprised when the Air Force described to me what they had discovered,” she said.

Mrs Wassom told the newspaper she has had to abandon her suspicions that it was sabotage. “My personal feelings about it was that it was not an accident. However, I was told I do not know how much after ­ that the Army had investigated and that it was an accident,” she said. “They gave me some kind of mechanical reason for it.”

Mr. Oakley identified the mechanical fault as a problem with the hydraulics in the tail assembly. Although US Air Force pilots had handled such emergencies, the Pakistani pilots were less well equipped to do so. “These pilots did not have much experience flying C130s and they flew so low,” he said.

The paper noted that a former US Ambassador to India was relieved of his post after telling Washington that he believed the Israelis, concerned about Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions, were behind the crash.

According to the daily, the mystery of how Zia died still captures the imagination. A former Pakistani Air Force officer has just published a novel about the dictator’s death, entitled A Case of Exploding Mangoes.

In the book, Mohammed Hanif postulates the popular theory that the crew of the aircraft was incapacitated by VX nerve gas smuggled aboard by a Pakistani intelligence agent. Over the years many possible culprits have been identified for the Zia killing, ranging from the ex-Soviet KGB or the Soviet-backed Afghan Government of the time to Pakistan’s arch-rival, India.

Witnesses to the crash cited in Pakistan’s official investigation said that the C-130 began to pitch “in an up-and-down motion” while flying low shortly after take-off before going into a “near-vertical dive” into the desert.

The Pakistani report said that the broken cables found at the crash site were of the proper length and had been pulled out in the accident. Analysis by a US lab found “extensive contamination” by brass and aluminium particles in the elevator booster package. But the report said: “Failure of the elevator control system due to a mechanical failure . . . is ruled out.” It cited the aircraft-maker Lockheed as saying that “even with the level of contamination found in the system, they have not normally experienced any problems other than wear.”

The report concluded: “This confirms the board’s findings that the contamination of the elevator booster package may at worst cause sluggish controls leading to over control but not to an accident.”

In the absence of a mechanical cause, the Pakistani inquiry concluded that the crash was an act of sabotage.

The daily said Pakistani investigators found no conclusive evidence of an explosion on the aircraft, but said chemicals that could be used in small explosives were detected in mango seeds and a piece of rope found on the aircraft.

“The use of a chemical agent to incapacitate the pilots and thus perpetuate the accident therefore remains a distinct possibility,” the report said.

Mrs Ely-Raphel, according to the paper, however, insists that the poison-gas theory is preposterous. “There was nothing pointing to any kind of gas whatever in any of the reports I read,” she said.

if you want a logical breakdown of why most Pakistanis regard it as an assasination. Read the first chapter of "The Bear Trap" by Brigadier Mohammed Yousuf. Its a fantastic read. you can get it from amazon.

"General Zia-ul-haq’s Plane Crash Due To Mechanical Problem"

Bullllllllllll SHHHHHHITTTTTT

The C 130 can glide with all its engines off... Zia's plane simple took a nose dive... It was a case of questionable mangoes...

Even the article says that there is a distinct possibility that chemical agents were used to in capacitate the pilot...

Russia used such chemicals in the hostage drama in moscow... But that doesnt rule out the US, or mirza aslam beg's involvement either...

It was an inside job...

Al Zulfiqar, the terrorist wing of PPP of that era initially claimed responsibity for his assasisnation, but later when they realized the consequences, they quickly denied any involvement.

it is likely that the soviets were behind the assasination, but Zia dead would not help the soviets much as they had to withdraw from Afghanistan anyway, although they might have had him killed as a form of revenge.

the indians were to benefit the most from Zia's death. since Zia was providing full support to the Kashmiri Mujahideen and Khalistani rebels, it was likely that a few more years of Zia in power would have resulted in an independent Khalistan and Kashmir would have been a part of Pakistan. it was not surprising that as soon as BB came to power, she handed over the list of Khalistani rebels and Kashmiri Mujahideen and training camps to the indians, which resulted in the indians brutally hunting down the separatists.

the US were not supportive of Zia initially, but the soviet invasion of Afghanistan changed everything. with the soviets almost gone from Afghanistan, the US might have not wanted a devout and conservative Muslim in power in Pakistan, and hence might have had something to do with his assasination.

who ever assasinated him, one thing is clear, it was not an accident. Zia ul Haq, according to me, was the greatest and most sincere, down to earth leader we ever had after Qaid e Azam. May Allah grant him a place in Jannah.

Zia had big plans for the central asian republics... He wanted to roll up russia altogether... Chechnya was a prime example of that approach...

The US on the other hand wanted to make sure that the russian armament didnt fall into Pakistan's hands... Almost all of russian nuclear facilities lie in central asian states... they didnt want possible nuclear accendents in mother russia...

I believe the potential bonanza in central asia got Zia killed... The man did great things for Pakistan... We really dont acknowledge a lot of what he managed to do...

unfortunately, post Zia history in Pakistan was written by those who came into power after him, and that was the PPP. its no surprise that Zia is not given the credit for all his achievements.

BTW, Gen Zia was assasinated exactly 20 years ago, on the 17th of August, 1988. today is his 20th death anniversary.

The report I had read detailed the entire coordination between Pakistani forces and the Russians.
Obviously the Russians couldn't walk into the C-130, so we're looking at Pakistani's who were double agents, on the KGB's payroll.

It wasn't any gyration or such, as the investigations revealed (black box or pilot's call) otherwise, that it was infact an assasination.

OMAR UK please provide link.

It's on Geo & APP News yaar.

The aircraft was on take-off mode, and (on turbo props), heavy loads or VVIP flights, the engine thrust is always on 'Wet Turbo' for take offs.
C-130 turbo-props gives more Bhp's than the B-747's jets.

Gyration occurs when a combination of aelirons, rudder and elevator jam in opposite directions due to a glitch (split seconds only) and common term we use is "'jahaaz epileptic tha". It doesn't go nose down, but goes round and round like a merry go around, as in a spiral dive.

All 3, Captain, First Officer and Navigator/Engineer didn't respond to radio calls of the Bawalpur Control Tower or air force C-130 trailing behind, is that possible?
Nerve agents paralyzes your muscles.

there were lots of people who wanted him dead, but my suspicion generated by Brigadier Mohammad yousuf book is on the CIA. for the KGB, RAW and Afghan KHAD all wanted him dead, but none was able to stop the investigation into his death, in particular to prevent the autopsies on the shaheeds. Only the CIA had the contacts to be able to do something like this. Having Read Charlie Wilson's war, I suspect Charlie may never have known about it. After all he is the one who said in his book; "There are 3 men I admire in history; Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill And General Mohammad Zia ul Haq."

The Times has uncovered a far less complicated explanation. According to US investigators, a mechanical problem, known to be relatively common with the C-130 military transport aircraft, was to blame.

there were lots of people who wanted him dead, but my suspicion generated by Brigadier Mohammad yousuf book is on the CIA. for the KGB, RAW and Afghan KHAD all wanted him dead, but none was able to stop the investigation into his death, in particular to prevent the autopsies on the shaheeds. Only the CIA had the contacts to be able to do something like this. Having Read Charlie Wilson's war, I suspect Charlie may never have known about it. After all he is the one who said in his book; "There are 3 men I admire in history; Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill And General Mohammad Zia ul Haq."

I am surprised at the age of the posters on this thread because had you guys been adult at the time of Gen. Zia's death, you would have picked up the actual story of that time i.e; CIA was involved in the investigation but USA & CIA refused access to FBI of the investigation of the C-130 mishap.

Now at that time USA had two parralel agencies i.e; CIA & FBI & very oftenly there was a major infight between both the agencies.

By US law in case of death of any US national on overseas soil FBI was needed to do an investigation. Now the very surprising part was that USA refused FBI to investigate one of their major celeberated Ambassador i.e; Raphel (yes a Jew on top of it!). According to official transcript the case has been investigated & closed on the finding that it was an accident !

The US on the other hand wanted to make sure that the russian armament didnt fall into Pakistan's hands... Almost all of russian nuclear facilities lie in central asian states... they didnt want possible nuclear accendents in mother russia...

I believe the potential bonanza in central asia got Zia killed... The man did great things for Pakistan... We really dont acknowledge a lot of what he managed to do...

PZ : I agree with you but at that time the theorist did not talk about the nuclear assets (may be an oversight) but rather the Federation of Islamic Countries which Zia was making i.e; Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, etc. + Khalistan. While Gen. Zia was on Saudi payroll (the sectarian drift) which was destroying us internally (US had hands in this too ..) but the Federation which Gen. Zia wanted to make got him killed (yes Central Asian countries were included in it).

However, having said that in the later years I hated him for his divide & rule policy i.e; shia / sunni flareup, creation of MQM & Jeay Sindh (for weakening PPP), allowing Afghan refugees to come inside Pakistani without any major checks & brutal force against demonstrations.

an A/C, esp a big C 130 doesnt just fall out of the sky like dat. a mechanical prob is always preceeded by an indication before hand.im sure the pilot(s) were experienced enough to handle dat.they could have sent a mayday distress signal etc.. MR shehz being a pilot will agree with me

Hi guys!

You don't have to go to any book shop or to buy it from an online store. Just hit the link and download the book and enjoy reading it. This is unofficially official document of the War in Afghanistan by the ISI available to the general public. Enjoy.

Bear Trap - Afghanistan's untold Story.pdf

Official Link (Urdu & English)
http://www.sovietsdefeatinafghanistan.com/...glish/index.htm

and many other books can be found here.

One report that came soon after this incident was, that there were at least 6 other aircraft in the vicinity and some...............................................................

SAS troops on the ground!!!!

At least Nawaz Sharif should take up the matter of investigation in Gen. Zia death more seriously as it is one of those things in which USA's hands were involved and like time time NYT takes up things about AQ Khan, we should also take up the killing of our dictator to bring out the real face of USA / CIA in the open !

The question is why didn't he proceed with an investigation when he did come into power...

That's a very genuine question...

No need for more investigations any longer.
The special ops team here at PDf has already declared USA was involved.
We should ask all the investigators here how they came up with such a unified judgement.

We're all speculating...

And the first rule of speculation is;

Who has most to gain from the crime??

Rogue pilot killed Pak Prez Zia-ul-Haq: UK report


Twenty years after Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq was killed in a plane crash, a new theory has been floated about how his C-130 aircraft was brought down.

A report in The Sunday Times of London has suggested that a rogue pilot might have been responsible for the death of Zia, the American Ambassador Arnold Raphel and other senior generals. The newspaper also draws a link between disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan’s smuggling ring and the death of Zia.

Wing Commander Mash’hood Hassan, the pilot who flew Zia’s C-130 on August 17, 1988, to Bahawalpur, had also been flying Khan’s centrifuge equipment to China.

“On one such trip he (Hassan) confided in a colleague of Khan that he hated Zia, holding him responsible for the murder of a local religious leader: ‘The day Zia flies with me, that will be his last flight.’ The aircraft plummeted to the ground soon after taking off, killing all on board,” Simon Henderson, who is described as A.Q. Khan’s confidant, wrote in the newspaper.

Khan’s activities give a new explanation for the crash of Zia’s C-130 plane in 1988, Henderson
argued.

The article revealed that for 30 years a sub-plot of the country’s nuclear programme was the antagonism between the Khan Research Laboratories and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission.

“I remember being told about China’s nuclear generosity by an outraged British official in the 1980s. I later asked what Beijing had received in return. It was an enrichment plant. The plant is at Hanzhong in central China. C-130 Hercules transports of the Pakistan air force made more than 100 flights to China carrying centrifuge equipment,” Henderson wrote. Guess who was flying those transports?

Wing Commander Mash’hood Hassan.

Another Link

BS...

Russia.

Russia was already falling apart...

“On one such trip he (Hassan) confided in a colleague of Khan that he hated Zia, holding him responsible for the murder of a local religious leader: ‘The day Zia flies with me, that will be his last flight.’ The aircraft plummeted to the ground soon after taking off, killing all on board,” Simon Henderson, who is described as A.Q. Khan’s confidant, wrote in the newspaper.

Wow it is only now that the British have come up with this story which was surely and correctly initially talked about .. Let me be more precise .. the pilot was a Shia and at that time many people were upset due to Zia beign involved in the killing of Allama Hassan Hussaini .. but this was just rumours as many Shia leaders came out (TNFJ / ISO, etc) and condemned the killing of the President of Pakistan & also the family of the PAF pilot confirmed that there no such thing as claimed ..

Again don't forget none of the pilots could not respond the ATC controllers plea ! Again the question arises why was the FBI deemed not necessary to do investigation of the killing of a high profile US ambassador !

No need for more investigations any longer.
The special ops team here at PDf has already declared USA was involved.
We should ask all the investigators here how they came up with such a unified judgement.

Shehz .. on the contrary .. we want a full fledge investigation in the whole affair .... including the aspects of FBI not allowed to investigate this major accident of it's time !

Wing Commander Mashood, Captain of the ill fated C-130 had more than 9000 hours on the type; so the theory that he could not handle a "run away trim" condition due to a jammed or contaminated actuator is not very plausible.

co pilot and commandos would knock down mashood in matter of seconds before he bring the aircraft down
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here is other theory sorry for cross posting

here is some new development but darogh ba gardan-i-ravi
or may be it is just an effort to instigate shia sunni roits
LINk
Re: Did Israel Kill The President Of Pakistan?

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we ( pakistani) killed him , the only thing outsiders did was give us money to kill him .

If you want to know who killed Zia go to Islamabad ( Fizaia ) where the rich and the famous live there look for Retd Air Vice Marshal Abbas Mirza known as Mikki Abbas remember I said add 2+2 . Ask him uncle do you who killed Zia if he says I don’t know ( and he speaks in a very stylish English accent ) then you ask him uncle from where did you get 5 million dollars and he is going to say what 5 million than you say the 5 mill your son adnan has it in his account in Washington DC. By that time his face would have gone pale and then you hit him with the question uncle why did you tell Group capt Zain-ulhassan Zadhi to take early retirement and leave the country before the inquiry starts by that time our AVM sahib would be on the ground with a heart attach and you will no who killed him.

And friends these officers are good people , very good officers and very good fighter pilots
From pakdef.info
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the material and contents are that of poster I faizan khaliq don,t assume any responsibility if he lied

The C-130 is probably the most widely used military transport aircraft in the world, it's proved very reliable indeed and being sturdy,
it can take a lot of punishment from a rough handler. Even say when an F-16 goes down, the manufacturers usually dispatch a team to
determine the cause of the crash, suffice to say, Lockheed would have carried out their own inquiry or several investigations for that matter, due to the
nature of such high profile fatalaties. I must admit, i haven't heard anything to this effect or what was discovered in the Black box ?
In certain case scenarios, no conclusive results ever materialise, even when it's the American president JFK!!!

the question is who had the motive, and not if they were falling apart.

there was an investigation, and declassified.
Years later it was printed (not in it's entirety) in Newsweek and Readers Digest.

The culprit was Russia.
And it was not a secret, that they had warned Zia over the support to US (Afghanistan).

The culprit was Russia.
And it was not a secret, that they had warned Zia over the support to US (Afghanistan).

Shehz .. i would have bought your theory .. but why than US just abandoned the whole area ! Why no investigations by LM or FBI ?

Had the Russians been involved US would have gone on hyper mode especially when one of their most senior Ambassador with Defense Attache was killed in the accident. Last I had heard in that era US had moved their 7th fleet for a Col. which Hezbollah had taken hostage !

The presence of the US personnel was un planned...

They decided to get on the plane at the last moment...

Nuff said...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/20_year...how/3372093.cms

20 years on, Zia's death still a mystery

On 17th August 1988 — exactly twenty years ago — at a little past 3.45 in the afternoon, Pak One, the official carrier of the President of Pakistan, took off from the military air base of Bahawalpur, in Pakistan's southeastern Punjab province. Among those on board the C 130 B Hercules transport plane that day were arguably the most powerful men in Pakistan. Besides General Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan's military ruler, the other passengers included the U.S Ambassador to Pakistan, Arnold L Raphael as well as the former chief of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), General Akhtar Abdur Rehman, considered by many to be the second most powerful man in Pakistan after Zia.

For Zia and his co-passengers, the morning had been a somewhat dismal one. They had come to Bahawalpur to witness the demonstration of an American built Abrams M1 battle tank. The demonstration turned out to be a fiasco, since the much talked about tank did not manage to hit its target even a single time. The President and his party nevertheless enjoyed a sumptuous lunch at the officer's mess, in which Zia was reportedly seen in a jovial mood, joking with his top generals. After lunch, accompanied by his American guests as well as a posse of his top commanders, he boarded Pak One on its return journey to Islamabad.

The journey back was expected to take almost an hour. However, within a few minutes of take-off, the C 130 B Hercules — considered one of the sturdiest aircrafts in the world — was seen lurching dangerously up and down in the sky, as if the pilot had lost control. Those seeing it from below saw the plane take a final loop, before plunging at top speed and exploding in a massive ball of fire. The explosion was so great that it ripped apart the aircraft, showering the desert where it fell with mangled masses of burning flesh intertwined with searing hot pieces of steel.

It was an explosion that redefined Pakistan's politics. In one swift move, the country's military dictator along with most of the top brass of the army were eliminated. Yet, twenty years later, there are still no convincing answers on how the explosion happened or who was behind it. Over the years, there have been no dearth of conspiracy theories. Or of possible conspirators — since Zia was a man not exactly loved by many. As author Edward Jay Epstein, who investigated the causes of the crash, pointed out in an article in Vanity Fair magazine, "It was not unlike Agatha Christie's thriller Murder on the Orient Express, in which, if one looked hard enough, everybody aboard the train had a motive for the murder."

So, who killed Zia? A number of people had the motive, says Epstein. For instance, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, the brother of Zia's arch rival Benazir Bhutto had headed a guerrilla group since the past nine years, called Al Zulfikar whose proclaimed mission was to bring down the Zia regime. Murtaza had admitted that he had attempted to assassinate Zia on five previous occasions, even claiming credit for the Pak One explosion, in a call to the BBC soon after the crash — a claim which he eventually retracted after it became known that the U.S. Ambassador was also on board. In any event, with his sister in a position to win elections if Zia could be removed, says Epstein, Murtaza had a definite reason to pursue his mission.

Then, there were the intelligence agencies. According to a report on the technical causes of the crash prepared by the Pakistan Government's Board of Inquiry, explosives found in the wreckage indicated "involvement of a specialist organization well versed with carrying out such tasks and possessing the means and abilities for its execution." Citing this report, journalist and author Robert D Kaplan wrote in The New York Times a year after the crash, that only three organizations active in Pakistan at the time against the Government fitted that description — the KGB, the KGB -created Afghan intelligence group WAD, and the research and analysis wing of Indian intelligence.

However, he pointed out that India's involvement in the air crash seemed less likely. "Zia was certainly not India's friend, but his actions as an adversary were relatively predictable," he wrote. As for KGB and WAD, says Epstein, they certainly had the means to carry out the threat, but what might have deterred them on this occasion was the presence of the U.S. Ambassador on the plane. "The Soviets would not have jeopardized Glasnost by assassinating an American of this rank," he says. However, the Ambassador was not scheduled to return with Zia and the perpetrators might not have necessarily known of this change in his plans.

Another suspect was the CIA which, according to Epstein had become concerned with Zia's attempts to make the first Islamic nuclear bomb and his clandestine efforts to smuggle the components for it out of the U.S. Also, the CIA suspected that he was diverting a large share of the weapons that they were supplying to him, to an anti-U.S. fundamentalist Mujahideen group.

Most people within Pakistan, however, have continued to believe that the crash was an inside job. It's also a premise on which journalist author Mohammed Hanif has based his recent debut novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, although he hastens to add that the only fact in the book is the plane crash — the rest all, he says is the product of his imagination. According to Epstein however, there is something to be said for the inside job theory. "Any foreign intelligence service or even Murtaza might have had the motive and even the means to bring down Pak One but they would not have had the ability to stop planned autopsies at a military hospital in Pakistan, stifle interrogations or, for that matter, keep the FBI out of the picture. Nor would they have much of a reason for making the whole thing seem like an accident rather than an assassination. Only elements inside Pakistan would have an obvious motive for making the death of Zia, Rehman and 28 others look like something more legitimate than a coup d' etat."

In any case, many Pakistanis feel Zia's ghost continues to cast a long and deadly shadow even now. "Two decades later, Pakistan is still trying to survive the many evil spirits that he had set loose," says political commentator Irfan Husain. "The policies pursued by Zia continue to detonate like landmines. For instance, he gave total freedom and vast resources to the ISI, because of which it is today in a position to create mayhem from Kabul to New Delhi," he says.

But, there's still no answer to the question: who killed Zia? Maybe the most convenient explanation was given by Benazir Bhutto, who hailed Zia's death as an act of 'divine intervention'. However, considering the plethora of suspects, conspiracy theories and alleged cover-ups, one wonders if God also knows who actually did it.

atul.sethi@timesgroup.com

The investigation was very intense, it lasted for months, they rebuilt the aircraft with whatever was salvaged, and flew it back to the US later.
Remember no bodies were found to conduct post mortem either, especially the ones in the cockpit.

Russia and US wrere still under that cold war thingy, and US couldn't disclose any incriminating evidence as such.
They decided to not reveal their source as it would compromise their agents and field operatives.
I don't know when the investigation finished, it was revealed to the public in 2002.
Ask any seniour member of PA, or just order a reprint from Readers Digest.