Passenger plane crash in Islamabad

[Xeric]

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | At least 45 killed in passenger plane crash in Islamabad

At least 45 killed in passenger plane crash in Islamabad

Wednesday, 28 Jul, 2010

ISLAMABAD: Rescue workers have recovered the dead bodies of at least 45 people from the wreckage of an Airblue passenger plane which crashed in the Margalla Hills in Islamabad on Wednesday, an official said.

“So far, 45 to 50 bodies have been collected…we have not found any survivors,” Ramzan Sajid, a spokesman for Islamabad's Capital Development Authority (CDA) told Reuters.

For information regarding passengers who were on board the plane, people can contact the Crisis Management Cell at 051-9211223-4.

At least 157 people were on board the ABQ-202, a civil aviation official said.

The 157 included 151 passengers and six crew members, an official said. To view the passenger list, click here.

Rescue workers arrived at the scene and managed to pull out four injured passengers from under the rubble. Meanwhile, the plane’s black box was also recovered, the Civil Aviation Authority said.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said five injured people were recovered from the site and were rushed to a hospital for treatment.

Earlier, Imtiaz Inayat, a senior Islamabad municipal official, told a private television channel that up to five bodies had been recovered from the site of the crash.

“Several bodies are lying in the area. Four or five bodies have been taken,” Inayat said.

Separately, Imtiaz Elahi, chairman of the Capital Development Authority, said: We have sent fire engines to the site, so far five dead bodies have been recovered.

The total number of survivors was not immediately known, another local administration official said.

“Rescue teams have reached the area. They are fully equipped. They are scanning the entire area. Those wounded or survivors are being provided assistance and arrangements have been made to take them to hospitals.

“We are trying to get details about the passengers. It's a big tragedy. It's really a big tragedy,” he said.

Mubarik Shah, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, said: We are gathering information. We have no more details.

However, a rescue team that accessed the wreckage of the crashed saw no sign of survivors, a rescue official said.

“I along with four other police and rescue officials reached the crash site. The debris of the plane was scattered there in raging fire. The plane had struck a ridge which fell on the wreckage,” official Arshad Javed said.

“All we could see were charred hands or feet. I collected two heads, two legs and two hands in a bag."

The plane was flying from Karachi to Islamabad and the exact cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

The aircraft had lost contact with the control tower during the crash which occurred amid thick fog and heavy rainfall in Islamabad.

Guards with the forestry service said they had found some wreckage and seen some bodies, police official Mohammad Saeed said. The army said it was sending special troops to the area to help out along with helicopters.

At the Benazir Bhutto International Airport, hundreds of friends and relatives of those on board the flight swarmed ticket counters desperately seeking information. A large cluster of people also surrounded the list of passengers on the flight, which was posted near the Airblue ticket counter.

''Nobody is guiding anyone. People are running from one counter to another,'' said Arshad Mahmood, whose brother, Maulana Nawabul Hasan, a prayer leader in a town near Islamabad, was on the flight.

One Saqlain Altaf told a private television news channel that he was on a family outing in the hills when he saw the plane, looking unsteady in the air.

''The plane had lost balance, and then we saw it going down,'' he said, adding he heard the crash.

Thick clouds of smoke were rising from the Margalla Hills.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ordered authorities to control the fire immediately and rescue passengers.

The government declared a day of national mourning and called off a cabinet meeting that was scheduled for today.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and the cabinet “expressed grief and sorrow over the tragic incident” and offered prayers for passengers who were killed, Gilani's office said in a statement.

Raheel Ahmed, a spokesman for Airblue, said an investigation would be launched, but that for now the focus was to find survivors. The plane was no more than eight years old, and it had no known technical issues, Ahmed said. He added that to his knowledge, the pilots had not sent any emergency signals.

Airblue flies within Pakistan as well as internationally to the United Arab Emirates, Oman and the United Kingdom.

The only previous recorded accident for Airblue, a carrier that began flying in 2004, was a tailstrike in May 2008 at Quetta airport by one of the airline's Airbus 321 jets.

There were no casualties and damage was minimal, according to the US-based Aviation Safety Network.

The airliner began operations in 2004 with a fleet of Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft, the company said on its website.

The plane that crashed on Wednesday was also built by Airbus, the European planemaker said.

“We regret to confirm there has been an accident with an Airbus aircraft and we will provide more information when we have more confirmed data available,” Airbus spokesman Stefan Schaffrath said.

According to the latest available data published by Airbus, Airblue operates six aircraft from its A320 family of short-haul and medium-haul aircraft seating up to 185 passengers.

Forty-five people were killed when a passenger plane belonging to Pakistan International Airlines crashed near Multan in 2006.

[Xeric]

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Passenger List of ABQ-202

Passenger List of ABQ-202

Wednesday, 28 Jul, 2010
The following are the names of the passengers who were on board the flight.

PYAR ALI
IMTIAZ ALI KURD
SYEED SHAAN-E-HUSSAIN NAQVI
PREM CHAND
HASSAN JAVED KHAN
SYED ARSALAN AHMED
MOHD. TUFAIL
ABDUL REHMAN
MOHD. FAISAL RASHEED
MOHD. OVAIS
HUSSAIN ALAM
GHULAM ABBAS
NAVEED ILYAS
MOHD. ALI MUGHAL
MOHD AFTAB
SHIREEN LODHI
MOHD. NAWAB HASSAN
ASIM ARAIN
ALI SHERAZI
MOHD. BASHIR
ZAHID HABIBI
DR.MIRKO CVJFTICANIN
ASIA BEGUM
MOHD. UMAIR KHAN
HAJI REHMAT GUL
MOHD. SAQIB RAFIQ SHAIKH
MISHA DAWOOD
ALI ASGHAR RAJAB ALI
RASHIDA TYEB KHAN
MURTAZA TYED KHAN
MALIK MOHD. YOUSUF
NABEEL LUTFI
MANZOOR NASIR
SALEEM AHMED
ROSIE AHMED
SALAUDDIN SYED
HAMID JAVED
MOHD. YOUSUF
ATA RAJA
SALMAN KHAN BIJRANI
MEHRAN KHAN BIJRANI
ANWAR BIBI
GULZAR BIBI
TARIQ SUBHAN
ABDUL GHAFFAR
IRFAN IRFAN
MOHD. SULTAN
MOHD. YASEEN
GAYABA KHAN
MANZOOR AHMED
MASOOD SALAM
SYED AZAM
OJAM KHAN
JANNAT GUL
ZAINTUN BIBI
WAHEED UR REHMAN
MOHD. FEROZE
DR. SURESH
MOHD. ASAD
AMIR SIDDIQUI
MONA DHONKI
MEHLEE DHONKI
AMIR DHONKI
AFSHAN DHONKI
MASOOD KAYANI
ZAFAR SALEEM
ABDUL GHANI
ADNAN QAYOOM
ABBAS HAIDER
OSAMA GHAFOOR
MOHD. ZAMEEN
ANDALEEB JUNAID
ABDUL RAHEEM
MOHD. ZAID RAUF
ANWAR BEGUM
NUSRAT BEGUM
ALI SHAH
KAMRAN SHAH
ABDUL QAYUM
MAQSOOD AHMED
ABDUL GHAFFAR
MOHD. IQBAL
KHAN ZAMAN
A M NASIR
SYEDA RABAB ZEHRA NAQVI
OVAIS BIN LAIQ
BILAL JAMAEE
SYED ASHIQ HUSSAIN SHAH
SAMATAR BASHIR
AMER KHATTAQ
HASSAN NASEEM
ATIF RASHEED
KANEZE AKHTHAR
SHAMSUL HAQ
KHADIM HUSSAIN REHMAT KHAN
MIRZA TAHIR BAIG
MOHD IRFAN
MALIK GHULAM HUSSAIN
JAVERIA FARAZ
MOHD AJMAL KHAN
SIKANDER HAYAT AWAN
MUBASHIR SHAHID
TARIQ SHAHID
MR. KAMRAN
MR. SALEEM
JAVAID IQBAL
PERVEZ AKHTHAR
RAHEEM KHAN RAJPUT
IKHLAAS KHAN
ASWAH GUL
ANSAR ABBAS
ATHAR IFTIKHAR
HAJI GUL MEHBOOB
FAROOQ KHAN
SYED JAWAD ALI
AYESHA AMIR
ALIZA AMIR
ABU BAQR IZHAR
SAPNA MUNAWAR
FAROOQ NADEEM
MOHD. ASIF

HASSAN ADEEL
ABID MEHMOOD
MALIK MUHAMMAD AJMAL
OWAIS KHAN
ROMAISA KHAN
MUHAMMAD SALEEM
MUJAHID REHMAN
AESAR ALI
TASLEEM KAUSAR
MUHAMMAD IBRAHIM
GHULAM RASOOL
MRS SHAHEEN
MRS SABIRA
MRS GULSHAD
MR RAWAHA
JEHANGIR KHAN
ALI AKBER
MUHAMMAD RAFIQUE
SYED HAIDER ZULFIQAR SHAH
MUHAMMAD SALEEM AKHTAR
RIZWAN GHANI KHAN
AMBER RIZWAN
MUHAMMAD ZAWAR KHAN
ARBAAZ KHAN
MUSKAN RIZWAN
FARID AHMED ALVI
SHAMAS US REHMAN ALVI
KHIZER PERVAIZ
KIRAN ALVI
MUHAMMAD KHALID
ASIF SHEHZAD
AYESHA ASIF
SYED AINULLAH AGHA
AFAZAL MASOOD
SYED ATTAULLAH HASHMI
WAHEED SHAIKH
NAVAID CHAUDHRY

[Lady Macbeth]

So sad, rest in peace. Our prayers are with the families who had to go through the loss of their loved ones.

[Neo]

Rest in peace.
Air Blue has an excellent safety record, I wonder what went wrong.

[Neo]

Airplane crash in Pakistan kills 152 people aboard

ISLAMABAD – A passenger jet crashed into the hills surrounding Pakistan's capital amid poor weather Wednesday, killing all 152 people on board and blazing a path of devastation strewn with body parts and twisted metal wreckage.

Initial Interior Ministry reports that five people survived the Airblue crash were wrong, said Imtiaz Elahi, chairman of the Capital Development Authority, which deals with emergencies and reports to the ministry.

"The situation at the site of the crash is heartbreaking," Elahi told The Associated Press. "It is a great tragedy, and I confirm it with pain that there are no survivors."

The dead included two U.S. citizens, the spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Richard Snelsire, said without providing further details.

Local TV footage showed twisted metal wreckage hanging from trees and scattered across the ground on a bed of broken branches. Fire was visible and smoke rose from the scene as a helicopter hovered above. The army said it was sending special troops to aid the search.

"I'm seeing only body parts," Dawar Adnan, a rescue worker with the Pakistan Red Crescent, told the AP by telephone from the crash site. "This is a very horrible scene. We have scanned almost all the area, but there is no chance of any survivors."

The search effort was hampered by muddy conditions and smoldering wreckage that authorities were having trouble extinguishing by helicopter, Adnan said.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said the government does not suspect terrorism.

The plane left the southern city of Karachi at 7:45 a.m. for a two-hour scheduled flight to Islamabad and was trying to land during cloudy and rainy weather, said Pervez George, a civil aviation official.

Airblue is a private service based in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, and Wednesday's flight was believed to be carrying mostly Pakistanis.

Rescue workers scouring the heavily forested hills recovered 50 bodies from the wreckage, said Ramzan Sajid, spokesman for the Capital Development Authority.

"The plane was about to land at the Islamabad airport when it lost contact with the control tower, and later we learned that the plane had crashed," said George, adding the model was an Airbus 321 and the flight number was ED202.

The crash site covered a large area on both sides of the hills, including a section behind Faisal Mosque, one of Islamabad's most prominent landmarks, and not far from the Daman-e-Koh resort.

At the Islamabad airport, hundreds of friends and relatives of those on board the flight swarmed ticket counters desperately seeking information. A large cluster of people also surrounded a passenger list posted near the Airblue ticket counter.

Saqlain Altaf told Pakistan's ARY news channel he was on a family outing in the hills when he saw the plane looking unsteady in the air. "The plane had lost balance, and then we saw it going down," he said, adding he heard the crash.

Officials at first thought it was a small plane, but later revised that. George said 146 passengers were on the flight along with six crew members.

The Pakistan Airline Pilot Association said the plane appeared to have strayed off course, possibly because of the poor weather.

Raheel Ahmed, a spokesman for the airline, said an investigation would be launched into the cause of the crash. The plane had no known technical issues, and the pilots did not send any emergency signals, Ahmed said.

Airbus said it would provide technical assistance to Pakistani authorities responsible for the investigation. The aircraft was initially delivered in 2000, and was leased to Airblue in January 2006. It accumulated about 34,000 flight hours during some 13,500 flights, it said.

The last major plane crash in Pakistan was in July 2006 when a Fokker F-27 twin-engine aircraft operated by Pakistan International Airlines slammed into a wheat field on the outskirts of the central Pakistani city of Multan, killing all 45 people on board.

Airblue flies within Pakistan as well as internationally to the United Arab Emirates, Oman and the United Kingdom.

The only previous recorded accident for Airblue, a carrier that began flying in 2004, was a tail-strike in May 2008 at Quetta airport by one of the airline's Airbus 321 jets. There were no casualties and damage was minimal, according to the U.S.-based Aviation Safety Network.

The Airbus 320 family of medium-range jets, which includes the 321 model that crashed Wednesday, is one of the most popular in the world, with about 4,000 jets delivered since deliveries began in 1988.

Twenty-one of the aircraft have been lost in accidents since then, according to the Aviation Safety Network's database. The deadliest was a 2007 crash at landing in Sao Paolo by Brazil's TAM airline, in which all 187 people on board perished, along with 12 others on the ground.

Airplane crash in Pakistan kills 152 people aboard - Yahoo! News

[Neo]

No survivors as Pakistan plane crash kills 152

An airliner has crashed near the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, killing all 152 people on board.

The plane, a flight from Karachi to Islamabad operated by the private airline Airblue, came down in hills north the city as it was about to land.

There is no word on the cause of the crash. At the time the area was shrouded in fog.

Pakistani TV showed images of smouldering wreckage on a foggy hillside, with helicopters overhead.

Syed Shoaib Hasan
BBC News, Karachi

Airblue is the largest of the private airlines which have sprung up in Pakistan in recent years.

The company and civil aviation officials are adamant there were no technical problems with the plane when it left Karachi. They say there was nothing in conversations between the pilot and the Islamabad control tower that suggests anything was wrong.

However, airport officials told the BBC that two flights due to land in the capital had been turned back before the ill-fated Airblue plane crashed, in what is the biggest air disaster seen in Pakistan.

Although the country's air industry has been booming, critics say standards have not always kept pace with the increase in services. Pilots complain they are being forced to fly extra hours which they say leads to fatigue, a claim denied by the airlines.
Imtiaz Elahi, chairman of the Capital Development Authority, which deals with emergencies, said the crash was "heartbreaking".

"It is a great tragedy, and I confirm it with pain that there are no survivors," he told the Associated Press news agency.

The plane, reported to be an Airbus A321 with 146 passengers and six crew on board, is thought to have left Karachi at 0750 (0350 GMT).

Two Americans were among the victims, a US embassy spokesman said, but gave no further details.

Pakistan's interior ministry initially said at least five survivors had been taken to hospital, but local officials later said those reports were wrong.

Local TV footage showed twisted metal wreckage hanging from trees and scattered across the ground. The flight data recorder has been found.

Officials said rescuers searching for survivors were digging through the rubble with their bare hands. The crash site, on a steep hill, has no roads.

"The plane is totally destroyed, the pieces and parts scattered over a large distance. Some parts of the plane are still burning. Some bushes have been burnt," said Express 24/7 television journalist Sabur Ali Sayed at the scene.

Aamir Ali Ahmed, a senior city government official, told Reuters: "It's a very difficult operation because of the rain. Most of the bodies are charred. We're sending body-bags via helicopters."

Airblue spokesman Raheel Ahmed told reporters that the crash was "an extremely tragic incident", adding that an investigation had been launched.

The BBC's Haroon Rashid in Islamabad saw the plane flying low over the capital.

"I was surprised to see the plane, because the area where I live is called a no-fly zone as it is close to some of Islamabad's most important official buildings, including President House and parliament," he said.

Other witnesses saw the plane flying towards the hills, and shortly after that heard a loud explosion and smoke billowing into the air.

Express 24/7 TV reporter Anjum Rahman said she saw the plane flying over the rooftops of houses where she lives.

"I wondered why the plane wasn't flying higher as it was flying towards the hill. Then within three or four minutes I heard a loud explosion," she told the channel.

Initial reports said the flight had originated in Turkey. But officials later said it was a domestic flight.

BBC News - No survivors as Pakistan plane crash kills 152

[Neo]

No survivors in Margalla plane crash: Rehman Malik

Wednesday, 28 Jul, 2010

The plane was flying from Karachi to Islamabad and the exact cause of the crash was not immediately clear. — Photo by AFP Media Gallery

Grieving the loss at Margalla Grieving the loss at Margalla ISLAMABAD: There were no survivors from the Airblue passenger plane that crashed in the Margalla Hills in Islamabad on Wednesday, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said.

“There are no survivors. We believe all are dead. We are recovering the remains of the dead bodies from the wreckage,” Imtiaz Elahi, chairman of Islamabad's Capital Development Authority told Reuters.

Elahi said earlier reports of five survivors from the crash were wrong and that all 152 on board the plane were killed.

Meanwhile, the city's police chief said rescue workers had recovered dead bodies of more than 100 people from the wreckage of the plane.

“More than 100 bodies have been found. We have not yet found any survivor or injured,” Bani Amin Khan told AFP.

“The search is continuing,” he added.

Two Americans were also among the victims, a US embassy spokesman told Reuters. He had no further details.

For information regarding passengers who were on board the plane, people can contact the Crisis Management Cell at 051-9211223-4.

At least 152 people were on board the ABQ-202, a civil aviation official said.

The 152 included 146 passengers and six crew members, an official said. To view the passenger list, click here.

Earlier reports said rescue workers had managed to pull out four injured passengers from under the rubble.

Meanwhile, the plane’s black box was also recovered, the Civil Aviation Authority said.

Earlier, Inayat, a senior Islamabad municipal official, told a private television channel “several bodies are lying in the area. Four or five bodies have been taken,” Inayat said.

The total number of survivors was not immediately known, another local administration official said.

“Rescue teams have reached the area. They are fully equipped. They are scanning the entire area. Those wounded or survivors are being provided assistance and arrangements have been made to take them to hospitals.

“We are trying to get details about the passengers. It's a big tragedy. It's really a big tragedy,” he said.

Mubarik Shah, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, said: We are gathering information. We have no more details.

However, a rescue team that accessed the wreckage of the crashed saw no sign of survivors, a rescue official said.

“I along with four other police and rescue officials reached the crash site. The debris of the plane was scattered there in raging fire. The plane had struck a ridge which fell on the wreckage,” official Arshad Javed said.

“All we could see were charred hands or feet. I collected two heads, two legs and two hands in a bag."

The plane was flying from Karachi to Islamabad and the exact cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

The aircraft had lost contact with the control tower during the crash which occurred amid thick fog and heavy rainfall in Islamabad.

Guards with the forestry service said they had found some wreckage and seen some bodies, police official Mohammad Saeed said. The army said it was sending special troops to the area to help out along with helicopters.

At the Benazir Bhutto International Airport, hundreds of friends and relatives of those on board the flight swarmed ticket counters desperately seeking information. A large cluster of people also surrounded the list of passengers on the flight, which was posted near the Airblue ticket counter.

''Nobody is guiding anyone. People are running from one counter to another,'' said Arshad Mahmood, whose brother, Maulana Nawabul Hasan, a prayer leader in a town near Islamabad, was on the flight.

One Saqlain Altaf told a private television news channel that he was on a family outing in the hills when he saw the plane, looking unsteady in the air.

''The plane had lost balance, and then we saw it going down,'' he said, adding he heard the crash.

Thick clouds of smoke were rising from the Margalla Hills.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ordered authorities to control the fire immediately and rescue passengers.

The government declared a day of national mourning and called off a cabinet meeting that was scheduled for today.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and the cabinet “expressed grief and sorrow over the tragic incident” and offered prayers for passengers who were killed, Gilani's office said in a statement.

Raheel Ahmed, a spokesman for Airblue, said an investigation would be launched, but that for now the focus was to find survivors. The plane was no more than eight years old, and it had no known technical issues, Ahmed said. He added that to his knowledge, the pilots had not sent any emergency signals.

Airblue flies within Pakistan as well as internationally to the United Arab Emirates, Oman and the United Kingdom.

The only previous recorded accident for Airblue, a carrier that began flying in 2004, was a tailstrike in May 2008 at Quetta airport by one of the airline's Airbus 321 jets.

There were no casualties and damage was minimal, according to the US-based Aviation Safety Network.

The airliner began operations in 2004 with a fleet of Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft, the company said on its website.

The plane that crashed on Wednesday was also built by Airbus, the European planemaker said.

“We regret to confirm there has been an accident with an Airbus aircraft and we will provide more information when we have more confirmed data available,” Airbus spokesman Stefan Schaffrath said.

According to the latest available data published by Airbus, Airblue operates six aircraft from its A320 family of short-haul and medium-haul aircraft seating up to 185 passengers.

Forty-five people were killed when a passenger plane belonging to Pakistan International Airlines crashed near Multan in 2006.

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | No survivors in Margalla plane crash: Rehman Malik

[Neo]

Tragedy at the Hills 1/6 The passenger jet, ABQ-202 carrying 157 people crashed into the hills surrounding Pakistan's capital amid rain Wednesday. Rescue workers have recovered the dead bodies of at least 25 people from the wreckage of an Airblue passenger plane which crashed in the Margalla Hills in Islamabad on Wednesday, an official said. The 157 included 151 passengers and six crew members, an official said.

[Neo]

[Neo]