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48 feared dead as PIA plane crashes near Abbottabad

 The national carrier’s flight departed from Chitral around 3:30 PM and was expected to land at Islamabad’s Benazir Bhutto International Airport at around 4:40 PM. PTI file photo. For representation purpose

All 48 people on board a PIA plane, including famous pop singer-turned-Islamic preacher Junaid Jamshed and three foreigners, were feared dead today as the aircraft crashed and burst into flames in a hilly area near Pakistan’s Abbottabad after facing engine problems.

The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane PK-661 with 48 people, including Jamshed, his wife and Deputy Commissioner Chitral Osama Warraich, on board crashed in Saddha Batolni village near Pakistan Ordinance Factory, Havelian, while en route to Islamabad from Chitral in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

The national carrier’s flight departed from Chitral around 3:30 PM and was expected to land at Islamabad’s Benazir Bhutto International Airport at around 4:40 PM.

So far 21 dead bodies have been retrieved from the crash site, according to the army.

A PIA spokesman confirmed that the pilot of the ill-fated plane had given a ’mayday’ distress call to traffic control before it went off the radar and crashed near the garrison town of Abbottabad.

PIA Spokesman Daniyal Gilani said there were 42 passengers, five crew members and one ground engineer on board. The plane manifest showed there were 31 men, 9 women and 2 infants on board the flight, including three foreigners.

"The debris of the plane has been found. So far there is no indication of anyone’s survival," an official said. A senior aviation official said the aircraft suffered engine problems.

Speaking to reporters at the Islamabad airport, Secretary Aviation Irfan Ilahi confirmed that the ATR-42 turboprob plane suffered engine problems. "It is premature to say anything at the moment, but we know that the aircraft had engine problems," he said.

Aviation Herald, that reports daily about incidents and critical situations in civil aviation, also said the plane had "engine problems". The daily citing local government sources said chances to find survivors are "bleak".

A PIA Spokesperson told Express News that the aircraft which was "nearly 10-years-old" was "in good condition".

Jamshed’s brother told the media that his brother and his wife and other members of a ’Tableegi’ (religious preaching) group were on the flight while returning from a religious tour to Chitral.

Army troops and helicopters have been mobilised to the site of the crash, Inter-Services Public Relations said.

Abid Ali, a senior official of the national disaster and management cell, said rescue work was underway at the crash site and six helicopters were being used in the operation but it would take time to recover the debris and all bodies as the crash took place in a mountainous region.

The flight initially left from Peshawar for Chitral and was returning to Islamabad from there before it went off the radar.Eyewitnesses were quoted as saying by media reports that they had seen a plane crash in a hilly area near Havelian. Clouds of smoke could be seen rising from the area of the reported crash.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif directed all authorities "to immediately reach the site and start rescue and relief operations", a statement said. Pakistan has had a poor air safety track record in recent years.

In 2012, a Bhoja Airline plane, a Boeing 737 carrying 121 passengers and six crew members, crashed near Islamabad just before touchdown.

The worst aviation tragedy on Pakistani soil came in July 2010 when an Airbus 321 passenger jet operated by the private airline Airblue crashed into hills overlooking Islamabad. The flight was coming from Karachi.

All 152 people on board were killed in the accident, which occurred amid heavy rain and poor visibility.

Another deadly civilian plane crash involving a Pakistani jet occured in 1992 when a PIA Airbus A300 crashed into a cloud-covered hillside on its approach to the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, killing 167 people.