No survivors after Pakistani plane crashes, officials say
A Pakistani plane has crashed while on a domestic flight from the northern city of Chitral to the capital, Islamabad.
Officials said there were no survivors.
The small twin-propeller aircraft belonging to Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) crashed near Havelian, the hilly area near Abbottabad district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, on Wednesday. There were 48 people on board the aircraft.
Daniyal Gilani, the PIA spokesman, said the aircraft had lost contact with the control tower prior to the crash. He said 42 passengers, five crew members and a ground engineer were on board.
"All of the bodies are burned beyond recognition. The debris is scattered," said Taj Muhammad Khan, a government official based in Havelian.
Pakistani TV channels showed a huge fire rising from the site of the crash.
Pervez George, the spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, said, "I don't think there is any chance of finding any survivors."
Pakistan's airline industry has gone through a string of tragic accidents in recent years.
The most recent air accidents involved helicopters in 2015. In May that year, a Mi-17 helicopter crashed in a holiday resort in the scenic hills of Gilgit, the capital city of the country’s northernmost administrative territory of Gilgit-Baltistan. Seven people, including the ambassadors of Norway, the Philippines and Indonesia, were killed in the incident.
In August 2015, a dozen people, all military personnel, were killed in an army helicopter crash.
In 2010, an Airbus 321 operated by Airblue private airline company, flying from Karachi crashed into hills outside Islamabad. All the 152 passengers on board were killed.
In 1992, the deadliest accident involving the PIA came when an Airbus A300 crashed into a cloud-covered hillside on approach to the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, after the plane descended too early, killing 167 people.
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