PESHAWAR/SADDHA BATOLNI - All 48 people onboard an ill-fated plane died yesterday when it crashed and burst into flames in the mountainous Havelian area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, officials said.
“No one survived (on PIA flight PK661 from Chitral to Islamabad),” the Civil Aviation Authority spokesman said about one of the deadliest aviation accidents in the country’s history.
His comments were confirmed by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) spokesman Danyal Gilani, who said there were 42 passengers, five crew members (two airhostesses and three pilots) and one ground engineer on board.
The passenger list confirmed there were 31 men, 9 women and 2 infants on the plane involving this national tragedy.
The deceased, whose bodies were mostly burnt beyond recognition and torn into pieces, included pop singer-turned-Islamic preacher Junaid Jamshed, his wife Neha and Chitral Deputy Commissioner Osama Ahmad Warraich.
Three foreigners were among the dead, officials said, with Austria’s foreign ministry later confirming two of its nationals were killed and Chinese state media saying one of its nationals was also among the victims.
The crash occurred after one of the two turboprop engines of ATR-42 aircraft failed, causing the crash around 4:40pm local time near Abbottabad district’s Saddha Batolni village, about 125km north of Islamabad.
A senior rescue official on the site who requested anonymity said: “The villagers told us that the plane was shaky before it crashed. It was about to hit the village but it seems that the pilot managed to drag the plane towards the hills. The fire is still on but it’s near to end.”
Rescuers, including hundreds of villagers who were first to reach the hardly accessible site, pulled the charred remains from the wreckage of the aircraft, parts of which were found hundreds of metres away from the main site near the village of Saddha Batolni.
Images shown on TV channels and circulated on social media showed a trail of wreckage engulfed in flames on a mountain slope.
A reporter at the site said part of the plane was still on fire more than five hours after the crash, as rescuers picked up torn human remains with their hands and placed them in bags before they were taken by ambulance to Islamabad for identification.
The military, which was part of rescue operations with 500 soldiers, doctors and paramedics, said yester night that 42 bodies had been retrieved. They also found the black box from the wreckage - which was mostly scattered about 100 metres out, according to witnesses.
The bodies were shifted to Ayub Medical Teaching Hospital Abbottabad and Islamabad. The KP government had set up an information control room to facilitate people regarding the crash.
President Mamnoon Hussain, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, KP Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak and other leaders expressed profound grief over the lost of precious lives.
Earlier, immediately after the crash the civilian and military leadership directed relevant authorities to do their best to rescue any possible survivors. The terrain around Saddha Batolni is hilly, roughly the same altitude as the Margalla Hills which overlook Islamabad.
Addressing a press conference later at night, airline’s chairman Azam Saigol said the pilot contacted ground authorities after one engine failed and issued a Mayday call at 4:14 pm. It began descending a minute later before disappearing from radar at 4:16pm.
“This plane was technically sound, and was checked in October,” he claimed, adding the captain had flown more than 12,000 hours and the aircraft was nine years old. “Our focus now is to retrieve all the dead bodies,” he added, vowing a full investigation.
Contact numbers
PIA spokesman said yesterday that PIA’s emergency response center has been activated and can be accessed at following phone numbers for updates: 0092-21-99044890, 0092-21-99044376 and 0092-21-99044394.
On PM’s the National Disaster Management Authority activated an emergency centre to provide update and information about the plane crash. The emergency numbers are UAN 111-157-157 and 051-9205037 will remain active around the clock.
Chequered history
The deadliest air disaster on Pakistani soil was in 2010, when an Airbus 321 operated by Airblue crashed into the hills outside Islamabad, killing all 152 on board. Inquiry blamed accident on a confused captain and a hostile cockpit atmosphere.
The deadliest accident involving PIA came when a plane crashed into hillside near Kathmandu in 1992, killing 167.
Most of the carrier’s fleet, apart from its latest Boeing 777s, were banned from entering the European Union between March and November 2007.
Despite this, PIA has been crash-free for 10 years, and received a 7 out of 7 in its latest rating on the often-cited AirlineRatings.com, which launched its annual listing in 2013.
But a 2014 analysis by US statistician Nate Silver based on data from 1985-2014, found the airline to have a consistently high number of what he termed “near-misses” - an indicator of risk.
Passengers list
Males:
Junaid Jamshed, Osama Ahmed Warraich, Abid Qaiser, Ahsan SS, Ahtiramul Haq, Akbar Ali, Akhtar Mehmood, Amir Shoukat, Asim Waqas, Ateeq Muhammad, Gohar Ali, Gul Norani, Haji Nawaz, Han Qiang, Harald Kessler, Hassan Ali, Mehmood Atud, Mirza Gul, Farhan Ali, Muhammad Khan, Muhammad Khawar, M Ali Khan, M Khalid Masood, M Nouman Shafique, M Takbeer Khan, Nigar Uddin, Salman Zainulabidin, Sami SA, Taimoor Arshid, Umara Khan and Herwig Eichelbenger.
Females:
Aisha, Amna Ahmed, Maahrukh Ahmed, Farah Naz, Farhat Aziz, Rani Mehreen, Samina Gul, Shamshad Begum, Taiba Aziz, Zahida Perveen, Nahya Junaid