Karachi: A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight crashed Friday afternoon in densely populated area here. There were 107 persons on board the PIA flight including 99 passengers and eight crew members.
Tragedy strikes
As of now there is no news of any survivors. The toll may increase as the aircraft has crashed into a residential area. A large number of properties have been damaged or destroyed, the Pakistani media reported.
“The plane crashed in Karachi. We are trying to confirm the number of passengers but initially it is 99 passengers and eight crew members,” Abdul Sattar Khokhar, the spokesman for Pakistan’s aviation authority, said.
See link: https://twitter.com/YusraSAskari/status/1263775256147382272
Flight PK-303 from Lahore was about to land in here when it crashed at the Jinnah Garden area near Model Colony in Malir. There was just a minute left for the aircraft’s, wheels to touch the ground, ‘Geo News’ reported.
No news of survivors
The PIA Airbus A320 had 98 people on board including 91 passengers and seven flight crew, the report quoted the civil aviation authority (CAA) sources as saying. The fate of the people was not immediately known. It is highly unlikely that there will be any survivors.
See link: https://twitter.com/_Mansoor_Ali/status/1263776441696649218
The CAA sources said that its communication with the plane was cut off one minute before its landing.
A statement has been issued by the Pakistan Army’s media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). It said that Army Quick Reaction Force and Sindh Pakistan Rangers reached the spot for carrying out rescue and relief operations alongside civil administration.
Emergency declared
Minister of Health and Population Welfare has declared emergency in all major hospitals here after the incident, ‘Dawn’ news quoted Meeran Yousuf, the media coordinator to the Sindh health minister, as saying.
Karachi and Lahore are about 1020 km apart and it takes a little over two hours for a flight to cover the distance.
The tragedy occurred just days after the Pakistan government opened up the skies for commercial flights to resume. Flights had been suspended due to the lockdown imposed in the country to prevent the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2016, a PIA aircraft burst into flames after one of its two turboprop engines failed while flying to Islamabad, killing more than 40 people.
Agencies