KARACHI – The government on Tuesday suspended flights of a private airline, a little over a month after one of its passenger planes crashed near Islamabad, killing all 127 people on board.
Civil Aviation Authority said the airline had been reduced to just one aircraft, below the minimum requirement, after one of its remaining two planes developed a fault.
The defence ministry ordered a halt to operations. “Bhoja Air’s operations have been suspended until it acquires at least three aircraft for domestic operations,” CAA spokesman Pervez George told AFP.
Nobody from the airline was immediately available to comment. A Bhoja Air Boeing 737 came down in fields near Islamabad on April 20 killing all 127 people on board.
In July 2010 an Airbus jet operated by Airblue crashed into the Margalla Hills overlooking Islamabad while coming in to land after a flight from Karachi, killing 152 people in the worst air disaster ever on Pakistani soil.