Pakistan Air Force scrambled fighter jets which flew over the blue area of the federal capital in fly past position on Saturday. The aircraft included F-16, JF-17 Thunder, and Karakoram-8 Jet Trainers.
The F-16 and JF-17 Thunder performer acrobatic displayed twice right over Aiwan-e-Sadr to the delight of the spectators. The jointly Pak-China built JF-17’s acrobatic display was more impressive as the pilot started scrambling it as the plane started to move towards the sky while the F-16 first took the height and then scrambled and disappeared from the reach of the naked eyes towards the blue sky.
This was followed by two formations of Pakistan Army’s helicopters. The first flight of the PAF fighters took the people of the capital by surprise and they wondered what was going to happen but when the pilots started manoeuvring the aircraft, it became known that perhaps they were rehearsing for the Pakistan Day fly past. There was no advance announcement from the PAF Public Relations Directorate about the rehearsal.
Also the federal government had already decided to cancel the Pakistan Day Parade of the armed forces of Pakistan on March 23 for the sixth time due to security concerns.
According to sources, the decision was taken while keeping the law and order situation into consideration.
The armed forces parade was last held in 2008 under the rule of General (R) Pervez Musharraf. March 23 Parade was not held a single time in the five year governance of Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP).
