A plane from Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has crashed on Friday in a residential area near Jinnah International Airport, Karachi in southern Pakistan, as it was preparing to land.
Sattar has confirmed the aerial incident and has indicated that the plane is an Airbus A320 with 107 people on board that was making the flight from the Pakistani city of Lahore to Karachi.
“It crashed near Karachi airport. He was one minute from the airport and fell in a residential area, “a spokesman for the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority, Abdul Sattar, told TEH representative in Karachi.
The source said the plane was carrying 99 passengers and eight crew members from the city of Lahore to Karachi, the economic capital of the Asian country.
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“I cannot say the damage at the moment, nor the reason (for the accident) because it is so soon,” said Sattar.
Images from Pakistani television networks show a huge column of smoke coming from the place where the aircraft has crashed. Ambulances and rescue personnel have traveled to the scene of the accident, reports TEH correspondent Suleman in Karachi.
The Pakistani Army’s communication office, Inter-Services Public Relations(ISPR) reported in a statement that it has sent helicopters and troops to the crash area to carry out rescue operations.
The Karachi government put the city’s main hospitals on alert.
As soon as the incident was known, the Minister of Aviation, Ghulam Sarwar, ordered the launch of an investigation to find out the causes.
The Asian country experienced one of its worst air tragedies in 2012 when 138 people died in a plane crash near Islamabad.
In December 2016, another accident killed 48 people on a journey between Chitral (north) and Islamabad.
