Passenger plane crashes in Islamabad; 152 on board

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

ISLAMABAD: A passenger plane crashed in the Margalla Hills in Islamabad on Wednesday, reports said.

At least 152 people were on board, said Pervez George, a civil aviation official.

The 152 included 146 passengers along with six crew members, George said.

Rescue workers arrived at the scene and managed to pull out four injured passengers from under the rubble.

Meanwhile, Imtiaz Inayat, a senior Islamabad municipal official, told a private television channel up to five bodies had been recovered from the site of the crash.

“Several bodies are lying in the area. Four or five bodies have been taken,” Inayat said.

The plane was flying from Karachi to Islamabad and the exact cause of the crash was not immediately clear, George said.

The aircraft had lost contact with the control tower during the crash which occurred amid thick fog and heavy rainfall in Islamabad.

Guards with the forestry service said they had found some wreckage and seen some bodies, police official Mohammad Saeed said. The army said it was sending special troops to the area to help out along with helicopters.

Mohammed Usman, an official at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport said dozens of relatives of passengers gathered there were crying and desperate to get information about their loved ones.

One Saqlain Altaf told a private television news channel that he was on a family outing in the hills when he saw the plane, looking unsteady in the air.

''The plane had lost balance, and then we saw it going down,'' he said, adding he heard the crash.

Thick clouds of smoke were rising from the Margalla Hills.

Airblue could not immediately be reached for comment.