Sad news has befallen the world of aviation as close to 100 people have this afternoon reported to have perished in a fatal passenger plane accident aboard an Airbus A320 that comprised 9 cabin crew members and 91 travelers enroute from Lahore to Karachi in a residential area in Karachi, a City located in southern Pakistan, Asia.
This incident happened at 2.30pm (0930 GMT) when the crew onboard and passengers lost contact with air traffic control while the plane was about to land when it descended among many residential houses forming clouds of smoke into the air while residents clearly witnessed it in the skies at a glance through their house windows as reported by Pakistan Civil Aviation Agency this Friday.
Commenting on the accident, PIA spokesman Abdullah Hafeez said “It is too early to comment on the cause of the crash.
Abdul Sattar Khokhar, the spokesman for the country’s aviation authority, said the Airbus A320 was travelling from Lahore to Karachi, the country’s largest city.
However, rescue teams including the Red Cross are currently working around to retrieve any suspected live persons from the fires so as they can save them though chances are very minimal.
The Airbus A320 with flight number PK8303 was scheduled to land in Karachi at exactly 14:45 local time (09:45 GMT) though lost contact with air traffic controllers 15 minutes prior to landing.
Currently, Pakistani Military has deployed numerous numbers of security forces to the area and helicopters are being used to survey the damage and help ongoing rescue missions.
“Our plane A320 which was coming from Lahore to Karachi … the last words for the pilot were that there is a technical problem and he was told on final approach that he has both runways available to him. But the pilot indicated that he wanted to go around,” PIA CEO Arshad Malik said in a video message released after the crash.
Atleast 6 casualties have been rushed to hospital though are yet to be declared if they are crash survivors.
According to one of the relatives to a one passenger onboard known as Zainab Imam, she reports that she was able to contact him after the crash earlier.
Images shown on national television showed plumes of smoke above homes in a congested residential apartment buildings, with fire trucks en route to the scene of the crash.
Television footage from the scene showed a number of ambulances unable to make progress in the narrow lanes of the residential neighbourhood where the crash took place, as people crowded in towards the site.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said he was “shocked and saddened” by the crash, tweeting that he was in touch with the state airline’s chief executive. “Prayers & condolences go to families of the deceased,” said Khan.
The disaster comes as Pakistanis across the country are preparing to celebrate the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid al-Fitr, with many travelling back to their homes in cities and villages.
Pakistan resumed limited domestic commercial flights last week, after a months-long suspension due to the coronavirus. Flights are operating with reduced capacity to ensure that passengers are sitting with one seat’s space between them in the cabin.
In 2016, a PIA commercial flight crashed in the northern Pakistani region of Chitral, killing all 47 people on board.
PIA, one of the world’s leading airlines until the 1970s, now suffers from a sinking reputation due to frequent cancellations, delays and financial troubles.
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