MULTAN, 11 July 2006 — A Pakistan International Airlines passenger plane crashed soon after takeoff on a domestic flight yesterday in eastern Pakistan, and all 45 people on board were killed, officials said.
The Fokker F-27 twin-engine aircraft slammed into a wheat field on the outskirts of Multan two or three minutes after takeoff for Lahore, spiraling in the air before it hit the ground and burst into flames, witnesses said. The Dutch-built Fokkers were declared outdated by many PIA pilots long ago but authorities at the state-run airline did not heed their advice.
“All 41 passengers and four crew members on board the plane have died,” said Iftikhar Babar, the district coordination officer for Multan, which lies about 650 km from Islamabad.
Malik Bashir, PIA’s station manager at Multan airport, confirmed there were no survivors. He said the cause of the crash was not yet known, but ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack on the plane.
A female flight attendant who was pulled alive from the plane’s wreckage died later at a hospital, airline security official Mohammed Iqbal said.
A PIA emergency department official who identified himself with the single name, Bashir, said the dead passengers were 33 men and eight women, all Pakistani. They included two army brigadiers, two judges of the High Court in Lahore and the head of a state-run university in Multan. Two male pilots and two airhostesses also died, he said.
President Pervez Musharraf expressed grief over the crash and ordered an investigation to determine the cause, state-run Pakistan Television reported.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz also expressed his grief at the loss of lives and ordered immediate grounding of all Fokkers.
Bashir said flight PK-688 took off normally on its way to Lahore, the capital of eastern Punjab province, at around 12.05 p.m. “Whatever happened to it was after takeoff,” he said. “The plane has burned completely and bodies are being pulled out of the wreckage.”
Plane debris, newspapers, cold drink bottles and clothes littered the crash site, about three kilometers from Multan airport. Emergency workers wore face masks to protect against thick black smoke and the smell of burning oil and flesh.
— With input from agencies
