A Pakistani aircraft carrying 47 people issued a Mayday call before losing radar contact and crashing into a mountain, killing everyone on board, authorities said, as they began collecting DNA Thursday to identify victims.
The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight smashed into a hillside in the country’s north after one of its two turboprop engines failed while travelling from the city of Chitral to the capital Islamabad.
It burst into flames upon impact and parts of the wreckage were found hundreds of metres (yards) away from the main crash site in Abbottabad district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The pilot of the ATR-42 turboprop aircraft contacted ground authorities after one engine failed and issued a Mayday call at 4:14 pm (1114 GMT), Azam Saigol, the airline’s chairman, told a news conference Wednesday in Islamabad.
It began descending a minute later before disappearing from radar at 4:16 pm.
“This plane was technically sound and was checked in October,” he said, 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.
PIA spokesman Danyal Gilani said the aircraft’s black box has been recovered but “it will take time to ascertain a reason of the crash”.
– ‘A great tragedy’ –
The dead included Junaid Jamshed, one of the country’s best loved singers who later became a Muslim evangelist, as well as senior local officials and three foreigners — two Austrians and one Chinese.
The dead included Junaid Jamshed, one of the country’s best loved singers who later became a Muslim evangelist, as well as senior local officials and three foreigners — two Austrians and one Chinese.
Dozens of friends and family members gathered at hospitals in Islamabad and Rawalpindi on Thursday to try to identify the badly charred and dismembered remains.
Relatives have been asked to submit DNA samples to help the identification process.
“My friend died in the plane crash, it is a great tragedy for me as he was my childhood friend,” said Murad Khan from Chitral as he waited at the Pakistan Institute for Medical Sciences (PIMS) in Islamabad.
“His relatives have not arrived yet. As I work in Islamabad I am here to receive his body. I don’t know if I will see his face for the last time or not.”
Raja Aamir, whose mother died in the crash, said: “The sudden death of our mother is a great loss for our family — 40 to 50 members of my family have arrived here in Islamabad we don’t know where we will stay.”
Six of the victims had already been identified through fingerprints, according to Ali Baz, an official at the Ayub Medical Complex.
Funeral prayers were later held for the deceased at PIMS which were attended by relatives, airline officials and hospital staff.
DNA testing would take a little over a week to complete, according to hospital officials.
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