Before elections take place, Zia is killed in a mysterious aircraft accident near Bahawalpur, in Punjab, on August 17, 1988, along with the chairman of the joint chiefs committee, the United States ambassador, and twenty-seven others.

A joint United States-Pakistani committee investigating the accident later establishes that the crash was caused by "a criminal act of sabotage perpetrated in the aircraft." Suspicion rests on Soviet agents, but nothing is proved.