Pakistan International Airlines plane crash killing 45

[White Cap]

Source: © AFP 2006

MULTAN, Pakistan (AFP) - A Pakistan International Airlines plane crashed into a field in a ball of flames shortly after take-off, killing all 45 passengers and crew.

The ageing Fokker 27 turbo-prop twisted and turned before plummeting to the ground in a suburb of the central city of Multan, witnesses said Monday.

The airliner was on a domestic flight to Lahore in eastern Pakistan.

"All passengers and crew are dead in the air crash," local administrator Iftikhar Babar told AFP.

"A fire broke out after the crash and all bodies were charred beyond recognition."

The passengers included two high court judges, a university vice chancellor and two military brigadiers, he said.

Some of the burned corpses lay in a heap while others were still strapped into their seats in the wreckage of the plane, which was ablaze for almost an hour, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

A propeller and the tail of flight PK-688 were scorched but largely intact while the rest of the plane was reduced to a heap of ripped metal, shredded luggage and ashes.

Rescue workers from charities, the army and the civil aviation authority wore masks as they sifted through the debris and removed the bodies.

Officials said 41 passengers and four crew were on board, comprising 37 men and eight women, all of them Pakistanis. Military ruler President Pervez Musharraf expressed grief after the crash while Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz ordered an inquiry, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan reported.

It was the worst crash involving a PIA plane in 14 years, after an Airbus A300 crashed into hills in Nepal in 1992 killing 167 people.

Witnesses said they were used to low-flying planes from the airport but said they saw the green and white plane veering from side to side before diving and hitting an electricity pole.

"This plane was at the usual low altitude. But then it started wobbling in the air before it went down in the fields.

There was a huge bang and a ball of fire," resident Allah Bakhsh, 40, said at the crash site in Multan's Suraj Miani suburb.

The plane crashed two minutes after take off and made no contact with air traffic control, PIA deputy managing director Syed Farooq Shah told reporters.

The plane was 38 years old and entered service with PIA in 1979, but the airframe was still within its specified lifespan, he added.

"There was no technical fault up until the recent flight but an inquiry has been set up under the safety branch of PIA," he said.

Civil Aviation Authority director general Pervez Akhtar said the cause of the crash was not yet known.

One official at the site, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the plane tried to land in the field after developing an apparent technical fault but struck an electricity cable.

Rescue officials said they had recovered 35 bodies so far. One woman was dragged out alive but died shortly afterwards from burns, they said.

"The bodies were so mutilated that I could not recognize them as that of men or women," said Irfan Ahmad, a doctor with the Edhi Foundation, Pakistan's largest charity.

PIA's fleet of eight Fokker aircraft came under scrutiny last year over the number of hours they had flown. They are due to be replaced by new ATR 42 aircraft.

In February 2003 an air force F27 crashed in fog-shrouded mountains near the northwestern city of Kohat, killing air force chief Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali, his wife and 15 others.

© AFP 2006