Karachi, Pakistan - A Pakistan
International Airlines (PIA) plane with 99 passengers and crew
crashed into a residential area of the city of Karachi on
Friday, with many feared dead, officials said.
Smoke billowed at the scene where flight PK 8303 came down,
some rooves were caved in, and debris lay scattered in streets
as ambulances rushed through chaotic crowds of people.
Seemin Jamali, a doctor at nearby Jinnah Hospital, confirmed
to Reuters there were at least five corpses from the crash.
"The aeroplane first hit a mobile tower and crashed over
houses," witness Shakeel Ahmed said near the site, just a few
kilometres short of the airport.
The jet, which tracking website FlightRadar24.com identified
as a 15-year-old Airbus A320, was flying from the eastern city
of Lahore to Karachi in the south just as Pakistan was resuming
domestic flights in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
"The last we heard from the pilot was that he has some
technical problem," the state carrier's spokesman Abdullah H.
Khan said in a video statement.
"He was told from the final approach that both the runways
were ready where he can land, but the pilot decided that he
wanted to do (a) go-round ... It is a very tragic incident."
One senior civil aviation official told Reuters it appeared
the plane was unable to open its wheels due to a technical fault
prior to landing, but it was to early to determine the cause.
PM promises inquiry
Pakistan's army and rescue services rushed to the site,
which appeared to be a densely populated area.
Several cars were on fire, footage showed.
"The pilot was told that he could land at the Karachi
airports, he was told that both the runways were ready, but he
took a circle and gave a MayDay call before the crash," another
civil aviation official, Abdul Sattar Khohar, told Reuters.
"We don't know yet whether he gave any reason at the time of
the MayDay call."
In Pakistan's most recent deadly crash, 47 people died when
a PIA jet smashed into a mountainside in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
province in 2016. The country's worst plane disaster came in
2010 when an AirBlue flight crashed killing 152 people near
Islamabad.
"Shocked & saddened by the PIA crash. Am in touch with PIA
CEO Arshad Malik, who has left for Karachi & with the rescue &
relief teams on ground as this is the priority right now,"
tweeted Prime Minister Imran Khan.
"Immediate inquiry will be instituted. Prayers & condolences
go to families of the deceased."