Pakistan Plane Crash Kills 127, No Survivors
Pilots were trying to land the plane at an airport near the capital Islamabad. The Boeing 737-200 was operated by Bhoja Air. The Associated Press reported that the domestic carrier has only four planes and had resumed operations last month after being suspended due to financial difficulties in 2001.
“My brother’s wife was on board this flight,” Naveed Khan told the AP. Khan gathered with family members at Karachi’s airport.
“We pray for the departed souls,” he said. “What else can we do now?”
The flight was traveling from Karachi to Islamabad, a Bhoja Air official told the AP.
Debris and body parts were scattered across the crash site that was about a half-mile wide. At least 110 bodies have been recovered, a government official told CNN.
Islamabad police chief Bani Yameen told the AP that nobody on the ground appeared to have been filled.
The crash is reminiscent of the last major plane crash in the country that occurred in July 2010, reported the AP and CNN. An Airbus 321 aircraft operated by Airblue crashed in the hills near Islamabad while trying to land. The crash killed all 152 people on board, and was also coming from Karachi.
Investigators will be “looking at technology,” aviation security consultant Greg Feith told CNN.
“What kind of radio equipment, what kind of ground proximity warning system the aircraft was equipped with, weather radar, things like that,” Feith said, “since the weather may be a factor in this accident.”
-----------
Reach executive producer Agnus Dei Farrant here.