Plane crash near Chaklala kills 127: Defence Ministry
Private television channels reported that all hospitals in Islamabad and in the nearby city of Rawalpindi had been put on high alert after the crash.
The Boeing 737 carrying 127 passengers and crew from Karachi was destined for Islamabad, initial reports by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said.
Witnesses close to the Bahria Town residential complex near the airport said emergency vehicles could be seen in the area.
Violent rain and windstorm was lashing parts of the capital around the same time as the crash, said an aviation official, adding that lightening might have caused the plane to catch fire.
Torn fragments of the fuselage, including a large section bearing the airline’s logo, could be seen in television footage.
Rescue crews combed through the charred wreckage of the plane as passengers’ belongings – clothes, shoes, jewellery – ripped from their luggage, lay strewn on the ground.
AFP adds: Saifur Rehman, an official from the police rescue team said the plane came down in Hussain Abad village, about three kilometres (two miles) from the main Islamabad highway.
“Fire erupted after the crash. The wreckage is on fire, the plane is completely destroyed. We have come with teams of firefighters and searchlights and more rescuers are coming,” Rehman told a private television channel.
“There is no chance of any survivors. It will be only a miracle. The plane is totally destroyed,” police officer Fazle Akbar said.
An airport source said that flight number B4-213 of Bhoja Airline was due to land at Islamabad airport at 6:50 pm (1350 GMT) but lost contact with the control tower at 6:40 pm and crashed shortly afterwards before reaching the runway.
Plane crashes are relatively rare in Pakistan, where inter-city travel is most efficient by air.
Bhoja Air re-launched domestic operations with a fleet of five 737s in March, according to newspaper reports, when the airline was planning to start flights connecting Karachi, Sukkur, Multan, Lahore and Islamabad.
Bhoja had been grounded in 2000 by the Civil Aviation Authorities amid financial difficulties, the reports said.
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 while coming in to land after a flight from Karachi.
All 152 people on board were killed in the accident, which occurred amid heavy rain and poor visibility.
The deadliest civilian plane crash involving a Pakistani jet came in 1992 when a PIA Airbus A300 crashed into a cloud-covered hillside on its approach to the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, killing 167 people.
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