Pakistani plane crashes

Over 100 feared dead:

PAKISTAN: A Pakistani passenger plane with 150 people on board crashed in a ball of flames in densely wooded hills while trying to land in Islamabad during bad weather Wednesday, aviation officials said.

Police said bodies were scattered across the hills near the scene of the smouldering wreckage in inaccessible hills, shrouded in heavy cloud and fog during a downpour.

Up to five people were confirmed dead but five injured survivors have been recovered, according to a senior minister.

Airblue spokesman Raheel Ahmed told AFP the Airbus A-321 took off from Karachi bound for Islamabad with 144 passengers and six crew members on board.

“Apparently the cause of the crash is bad weather, but we leave that to the investigators,” he told AFP.

“We are now preoccupied with rescue work and striving to take care of the relatives of the passengers who were on board.” Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that at least five injured people had been taken to hospital by helicopter.

“We are trying to get details about the passengers. It’s a big tragedy. It’s really a big tragedy,” Malik told Express TV.

“Rescue teams have reached the area. They are fully equipped.

They are scanning the entire area. Those wounded or survivors are being provided assistance and arrangements are have been made to take them to hospitals.”

Civil aviation spokesman Pervez George said Airblue flight 202 took off from Karachi, Pakistan’s financial capital, at 7.45 am and had been preparing to land in Islamabad when it crashed.

“When it was preparing to land, it crashed in the Margalla Hills,” he said.

Thick smoke could be seen rising from an inaccessible region in the densely wooded hills, where helicopters circled overheaded and rescue services dispatched ambulances to the nearest roads, an AFP correspondent said.

City police chief Bani Amin said police were informed of a loud explosion and fire sweeping through the hills that dominate the Islamabad skyline, before confirmation that a passenger plane had crashed.

“The site of crash was inaccessible. We have sent teams. It is a forest. Rescue teams have been sent. Helicopters have also been deployed.

It is difficult to take out each and everybody immediately,” he told Geo. ISLAMABAD, Wednesday, AFP