Alghadeer TV Alghadeer TV
Pakistan had resumed domestic flights earlier this week ahead of Eid al Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan after a countrywide Covid-19 lockdown since mid-March, Airbus says it would provide technical assistance to investigators.
Ninety-seven people were killed and two survived when a passenger plane crashed into homes in Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi, health officials said on Saturday.
The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane had made multiple approaches to land at the city’s airport when it came down in a residential area, damaging buildings and sparking a rescue operation that lasted into the night.
All passengers and crew had been accounted for and the bodies of those killed had been recovered from the crash site, the Sindh Health Ministry said, adding that 19 had been identified.
A local hospital earlier reported it had received the bodies of people killed on the ground. The site remained cordoned off on Saturday morning.
The crash sent plumes of smoke were into the air as rescue workers and residents searched the debris for people and as firefighters tried to extinguish the flames.
Blackbox recovered from crash site
A PIA spokesman Saturday said the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder have been recovered from the site of the crash.
“The black box had been found late yesterday, we are handing it over to the inquiry board,” Abdullah Khan said, clarifying that both the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder were found.
Congested residential area
The plane went down about 2:39 p.m. northeast of Jinnah International Airport in the poor and congested residential area known as Model Colony between houses that were smashed by its wings.
Police in protective masks struggled to clear away crowds amid the smoke and dust so ambulances and firetrucks could reach the crash site. As darkness fell, crews worked under floodlights, and a portable morgue was set up.
The Sindh provincial health department said it had recovered 57 bodies, while PIA chairman Arshad Malik said finding all the dead could take two to three days. Pakistan’s civil aviation authority said the plane had 91 passengers and a crew of seven.
The A320 can carry up to 180 passengers, depending on how its cabin is configured.
Two survivors
At least two people aboard survived, according to the health department, revising an earlier statement that three were alive.
Local TV stations showed video of a man on a stretcher they identified as Zafar Masood, the head of the Bank of Punjab. Malik later confirmed that Masood survived the crash.
The Sindh provincial government press department later distributed a photo depicting a second survivor identified as Mohammad Zubair, recovering in a Karachi hospital.
