A Pakistani passenger jet with 127 people on board has crashed as it was landing in bad weather at an airport near the capital, Islamabad, officials said.
A police officer said there was 'no chance' of finding any survivors at the site of the crash, which happened in a relatively unpopulated rural area.
The Bhoja Air flight from Karachi burst into flames after coming down in fields near a village on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital as it tried to land in rain and hail at the city’s international airport.
The airline said the Boeing 737 was carrying 121 passengers, including 11 children, as well as six crew.
“There is no chance of any survivors. It will be only a miracle. The plane is totally destroyed,” police official Fazle Akbar told AFP from the crash site.
So far 110 bodies have been recovered from the crash site, Brigadier Sarfraz Ali, who is heading the recovery efforts, told reporters.
“We cannot identify them because some of the bodies are not recognisable,” he said.
Pakistani rescue workers and local residents search
through debris at the site of the plane crash
Debris from the crash was scattered over a two kilometre (mile and a half) radius, he said, adding that lights had been brought to the site to allow work to continue through the night.
Torn fragments of the fuselage, including a large section bearing the airline’s logo, littered the fields around the village of Hussain Abad, where the plane came down.
Rescue workers in orange jumpsuits and local residents used torches to search through the wreckage after nightfall, assisted by soldiers carrying assault rifles.
Part of the airline’s name could be read on a large section of ripped white fuselage from the passenger cabin.
The smell of burning filled the air at the scene and human limbs were scattered in a large area spattered with blood, witnesses said.
An AFP reporter saw an orange flight data recorder in a house where some of the wreckage fell
Desperate: Relatives gather at Jinnah International
Airport as they wait for updates on the fate of their relatives who were
traveling on the Bhoja Air plane that crashed minutes before landing in
Islamabad
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May their souls rest in peace,
ReplyDeleteoh this is sad indeed!
ReplyDelete