The Friday Times Book Review — Seat 1C

Seat 1C: A Crash, A Miracle, And The Philosophy Of Survival

Zafar Masud’s Seat 1C transforms a tragic air crash into a profound exploration of life, faith, and resilience — a masterful blend of personal reflection, history, and timeless wisdom

A great mind indeed focuses on the overarching conceptions, rather than micro-level cavils. And this novel book (Seat 1C) is, undoubtedly, a testament of the author’s unassailable “great mind”, brimming with meteoric kinetic (analytical) and potential energy (stature).

Zafar Masud is a banker-cum-public thinker, cum arts aficionado, cum writer, public speaker, cum public sector professional—and this is his second book. The first (Read its review here) was a collection of his essays on Pakistan’s economic paradigm. 

Coming back to the book: this book, like a clockmaker’s exactitude, recounts the nitty-gritty of the PK8303 crash, the baggage of it on the author’s life—both physically and metaphysically—and, most importantly, how these microcosmic events paint and extrapolate into macrocosmic, perennial life learnings. By life here, I am referring to both the personal as well as the professional realm.

Before dipping into the themes, the book qua book boasts a highly fluent topography; the author languidly talks about the event (crash) and after a few instances goes back thousands of years, coalescing and asserting the gems from the teachings of philosophers, deities, and mythologies, and then leaps again to post-crash happenings, very conveniently. And still, the reader doesn’t feel the disconnect. Rather, it contextualizes “the extrapolation” of the event into eternal principles.

The book starts with, as it should, the crash itself. Simply put: the descent was too steep and too fast. The pilots ignored multiple warnings and ATC advice. The landing gear wasn’t properly deployed. The plane touched down on its engines, not its wheels — a belly landing. It scraped the engines on the runway, causing serious damage. The plane took off again (called a go-around) after this, but the engines had been fatally damaged. It crashed into Model Colony, Karachi — a mere 1,340 meters from the plane’s intended runway at Karachi Airport. This stark, technical recounting provides not only context but also becomes the bedrock upon which deeper philosophical insights are built.

The 10 lessons that are ascertained via induction (that is, going from particulars to universals) are: Arrogance, Dues, Goodness, Sincerity, Miracles, Willpower, Rituals, Bold Steps, Communications, and Legacy.

It is not just about surviving a crash; it is about reassembling a life with wisdom drawn from the shards

In each theme, the author pristinely ventures through the crash and then correlates it with archaic literature, contemporary studies, and how the theme connects to his personal history.

For instance, in the chapter on arrogance, he discusses the hubris and institutional decay of the aviation sector, despite multiple heart-wrenching crashes. He retells the stories of past aviation tragedies and how, despite the haunting jitters (that claimed lives), the governance system failed to adapt, instead resorting to nonsensical and cosmetic gestures, like dragging a black goat onto the runway. He then relates the theme to other historical downfalls, such as the decline of kabaddi, Icarus’ reckless desire to soar leading to his collapse into the sea, Napoleon’s condescending leadership and the Russian winter decimating his army, and the Mughal myopia that led to the subcontinent’s fall to the East India Company. In this way, with each theme, he beautifully traverses history to vouch for his conclusions drawn from the crash.

“Had the pilot not displayed such blatant disregard for the advice from ground control and, apparently, from his first officer, the pilot might have landed on its initial descent.” He writes

He also mentions poetry here and there. In the “Dues” chapter, after quoting the experiences of other NDE survivors, he recounts his own, and mentions Munir Niazi’s fantabulous & renowned poem “Hamesha der kar deta hun”.

He writes, “Grief is one of the heaviest emotions we feel, often leaving people entirely incapacitated when faced with the loss of a loved one.” The emotional baggage he carried — which he tried to unburden by telling his mother everything after the crash — incarnates the importance of untangling the unresolved feelings and trauma we germinate in our souls for years due to various impediments, often dying with that weight still within us.

The author is highly honest about his predilections, making the whole panorama raw and radical. At one point, he says he was always uncertain about the existence of miracles — and yet he miraculously escaped death. From changing his seat to the aisle, to being thrown onto a car, and then rescued shortly after, everything aligned perfectly in the chain of events. This reinforced his faith in the inexplicable will of God, but also came with the realization that what is in our control ultimately catapults how we are going to live.

Apart from the otherwise politically humdrum discussions, the author also delves into the political ramifications of the Cold War on Pakistan, and how the funneling of funds due to the thriving Afghan war altered both the political landscape and the nature of religiosity (whose extremity he is ardently against), particularly in the “Rituals” chapter. By doing this, he illustrates how rituals are often pushed toward extremity due to external forces interplaying for some “greater interest.” He concludes that rituals, while important, are not life itself — as in the final moments before fainting, he thought not of rituals, but of how he had spent his life. (Again, the same line of reasoning — moving from the particular to the universal.)

All the more, another theme—also mentioned in his previous book—is the relationship between literature and seemingly cold subjects like economics. He discusses Vedic texts reflecting on economic thought, Dickens’ novels portraying economic injustices, and also highlights powerful Pakistani literature, including Faiz, Iqbal, Manto, and Jalib.

He argues that education should be inclusive and infused with literature to encourage people to think differently and out of the box. He writes, “Well-rounded professionals with backgrounds in the disciplines of humanities (particularly literature and art) grant new perspectives to businesses and their modus operandi, think more creatively when finding scientific solutions to existing problems, and are inspired to innovate more.” This is a powerful call for interdisciplinary thinking, especially relevant in today’s compartmentalized educational systems.

There is a quiet power in the way this book makes catastrophe a cradle for reflection. How a single event refracts into multiple meanings across memory, myth, and modernity. Rarely does a personal memoir read like a public reckoning—and yet, it does just that, gracefully and gravely. It is not just about surviving a crash; it is about reassembling a life with wisdom drawn from the shards.

While I could write more and more about each chapter, I still wouldn’t run out of words even after thousands. But I don’t want to spoil the reader’s pleasure.

In short: This is not another run-of-the-mill self-help book. Instead, it is the jotting down of a person’s discursive analysis (that is, streams of consciousness) of the past—of himself, the outlandish “event,” and the world—and the outcome (the learnings) of the former, in a readable and fluent text. And all of this has culminated, practically as well, in the form of the Zafar Masud Foundation, which works for passenger safety of every kind, including aviation.

By Furqan Ali. Published in Friday Times on April 17, 2025