ISLAMABAD: A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) carrying 47 people crashed Wednesday on a domestic flight from the mountainous northern city of Chitral to Islamabad, killing all persons on board.
PIA Chairman Azam Saigol while confirming there were no survivors of the tragic plane crash said the aircraft was ‘fit to fly’.
Speaking at a news conference here, Azam Saigol said the PIA has 11 ATR aircrafts in its fleet and they all have been ‘reliable’.
“The plane crashed on Wednesday was A-checked in October,” he said in response to rumours about technical issues with the aircraft, adding that this certification is conducted after every 500 hours of flying.
“There is no room of human error regarding fitness certification of the plane, however, the incident will be probed thoroughly,” the PIA chairman assured, hinting at assistance by international agencies in the investigations.
Saigol said it was our plane and our passengers, yet contending the air travel was still the safest means of transportation. “We will ascertain the causes of the crash and will inform you,” he told anxious newsmen.
“This, however, should not be expected from the PIA that it would fly unfit jets,” he added.
According to a spokesperson for the Commissioner’s office in Hazara Division, 42 bodies have been recovered from the plane’s wreckage, which had scattered over a several kilometres. The Inter-Services Public Relations said around 500 army personnel were taking part in the operation to recover the bodies and any survivors, but witnesses on the crash site said there were unlikely to be any survivors.
According Civil Aviation Authority officials, the ATR-42 turboprop plane with 47 passengers went missing from the radar near the town of Havelian in Abbottabad district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province while it was on its way to Islamabad.
Bodies shifted to Ayub Medical Centre
As many as 47 bodies were shifted to Ayub Medical Centre in Abbottabad from the site of the incident.
Deputy Director Services Ayub Medical Centre Muhammad Junaid confirmed that at least 25 bodies have been examined up till now and among them, five were identified.
The identified were: Ahsan Ghaffar of Gojar Khan, Sami Ullah of DG Khan and Farhad Aziz, Takbir Khan and Nawaz Khan of Chitral.
DNA Examination
Spokesperson Aviation Division Sher Ali Khan informed that the bodies would be shifted to the hospitals in Rawalpindi and Islamabad through helicopters for DNA examination on early Thursday morning, after the requisite tests, the families would then be allowed to take the bodies for burial.
The plane took off from Chitral around 3:50PM and Pakistan International Airlines said the plane crashed at 1642 local time (1142 GMT) in the Havelian area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, about 125 km north of Islamabad.
CAA sources confirmed a mayday call from the pilot to the control tower shortly before it lost communication with the plane.
The flight crew included pilot captain Saaleh Janjua, and first officers Ali Akram and Ahmed Janjua.
Deputy Commissioner Chitral Osama Ahmad Warraich was also on board the ill-fated PIA flight. Among the passengers were nine women and two infants.
Black box found
According to latest updates, the black box of the crashed plane has been recovered. PIA officials confirmed the development. Information recovered from the flight data recorder may prove crucial to the investigation of the reasons behind the plane crash.
Eyewitnesses said they had seen the plane crash into a hilly area near Havelian close to the Ordinance factory. Clouds of smoke could be seen rising from the area of the reported crash.
Pictures from the area, which was about an hour away from Havelian, showed the plane’s wreckage which had scattered over a large area. Flames and smoke could also be seen rising from the wreckage.
Pictures sent by local residents
Junaid Jamshed, wife also killed in crash
According to a list of passengers issued by PIA, popular personality Junaid Jamshed and his wife were also on the ill-fated plane.
Jamshed, a former musician turned religious preacher and ‘naat-khwaan’, was in Chitral and his name was among the list of passengers on board the flight. According to list, Jamshed was on the seat 27-C.
Jamshed’s brother has confirmed that Jamshed was onboard the ill-fated plane.
Pakistan has had a poor air safety track record in recent years.
The country’s last major air disaster was in 2015 when a military helicopter crashed in a remote northern valley, killing eight people including the Norwegian, Philippine and Indonesian envoys and the wives of Malaysian and Indonesian envoys.
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 in 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 came to pass in 1992 when a PIA Airbus A300 crashed into a cloud-covered hillside on its approach to the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, killing 167 people.
The PIA said an emergency response center has been activated and can be accessed at following phone numbers for updates:
