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Pakistan mourns air force dead, focus on weather

By David Brunnstrom

ISLAMABAD, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Pakistan held a prayer ceremony on Friday for its air force chief and 16 others killed in an air crash and news reports said pilot error in foggy weather was the most likely cause of the accident.

An air force Fokker F-27 turboprop carrying Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir, his wife and several senior officers crashed on a hill about 27 km (17 miles) from the northwestern town of Kohat on Thursday, killing all 17 aboard.

The prayer ceremony, attended by President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, was being held at the air force base in capital Islamabad.

The victims of the air crash will be buried later in their hometowns.

While a board of inquiry has been set up to determine the exact reason for the crash, news reports on Friday quoted officials as saying pilot error in low visibility was the most likely cause.

Air force spokesman Air Commodore Sarfraz Ahmed Khan called the crash an accident on Thursday, but said the weather had been fit for flying.

However, residents of Taulanj, the village near where the plane came down, said the skies had been foggy at the time.

The News newspaper quoted an unnamed senior official as saying the Fokker had hit the hillside after the pilot flew low to escape thick cloud.

"It was an accident because of human error and apparently there was no element of sabotage or act of terrorism," it quoted the official as saying.

It was the worst military air crash since 1988 when Pakistan's then-president and army chief, General Mohammad Zia- ul-Haq, died in a mysterious crash in Punjab province.

The cause of that crash, which also killed the intelligence chief and the U.S. ambassador, has never been established.

Those killed on Thursday included two air vice marshals, two air force commodores and Mir's wife Bilqees.

The air force chief, who was 55 and had held his job since November 2000, had been on the way to Kohat air base for an annual inspection.

President Musharraf called the deaths a great national loss and a day of mourning was called for on Friday.

The crash came after Pakistan experienced four successive days of heavy rain, some of the heaviest downpours in decades.

The rains and thick snow in the mountains have killed dozens of people in Pakistan and others in neighbouring India and Afghanistan, but have brought much needed relief to farmers after years of drought.

Air Marshal Syed Qaiser Hussain has been appointed acting air force chief.

Air force spokesman Khan said the deaths of the senior officers had been a great loss, but would have no impact on operational readiness.

Pakistan's air force, which has a strength of some 40,000 service personnel, has more than 10 air vice marshals and many more air commodores.

The force, like Pakistan's other military services, was in a state of high alert for much of the past year due to tensions with nuclear-armed rival India that took the neighbours to the brink of their fourth war. 

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