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There were heartrending
scenes as friends and relatives reacted with shock and grief
(Photo: AFP) |
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 Plane carrying 152 people on board
crashes in Pakistan:
A plane carrying 152 people on board today crashed into the Margalla
Hills overlooking the Pakistani capital apparently due to bad
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Islamabad:
All 152 people on board a Pakistani
plane have been killed after the aircraft plunged into the Margalla
Hills near the capital, Islamabad.
The interior minister said no survivors had been found as rescuers
searched the site after the accident on Wednesday.
"Nobody survived," Rehman Malik told Express TV.
The accident occurred as the plane was attempting to land in bad
weather.
The search operation was complicated as the plane had plummeted into
a gorge between two densely wooded hills, more than an hour by foot
from the nearest road.
There were initial reports of up to six passengers being found
alive, but these reports later proved to be wrong.
Bodies recovered
All the bodies had been recovered from the site, according to the
police.
"You find very few intact bodies. Basically, we are collecting body
parts and putting them in bags," Bin Yameen, a senior police
official, told Reuters.
Rain has interrupted the airlifting of the bodies, but alternative
arrangements have been made to bring them down the hillside on ropes
should the weather not improve.
Police said they were informed first of a loud explosion, then fire
sweeping through the hills that dominate the Islamabad skyline,
before confirmation that a passenger plane had crashed.
"When I came, I saw a big ball of smoke and fire everywhere with big
pieces of aircraft rolling down the hill," Haji Taj Gul, a police
officer, said.
Pervez George, a civil aviation official, said the plane was about
to land at the Islamabad airport when it lost contact with the
control tower.
The Airbus A-321 belonged to the private Airblue airline.
Heavy rain
Raheel Ahmed, a company spokesman, said: "Apparently the cause of
the crash is bad weather, but we leave that to the investigators."
Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said there had
been heavy rain in the area in the morning when the plane crashed.
"Visibility was very poor... Questions are now pointing at why the
airplane would try and land considering weather conditions were so
bad," he said.
"What will be critical is finding the black box which will give the
final moments of the cockpit conversation that will give better
clues into what happened."
The army sent special troops to the area to help out along with
helicopters.
The ED202 flight was headed from Karachi to Islamabad.
Yousuf Raza Gilani, the prime minister, and the cabinet "expressed
grief and sorrow over the tragic incident" and offered prayers for
passengers who were killed.
"The federal cabinet declared one day national mourning because of
this tragic incident. The prime minister called off the cabinet
meeting until next week in the wake of this tragic incident,"
Gilani's office said in a statement.
Pakistan-based Airblue started operations in 2004 and is flying to
many cities in Pakistan as well as five destinations in the Middle
East and the UK.
The only previous recorded accident for Airblue was a tailstrike in
2008 at Quetta airport by one of the airline's Airbus 321 jets.
There were no casualties in that incident and damage was minimal,
according to the US-based Aviation Safety Network.
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