A passenger plane with nearly 100 people on board has crashed in a residential area in the Pakistani city of Karachi, killing at least 30 people and wounding many others, officials said.
The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane was close to landing at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport when it came down among houses, sending plumes of smoke into the air that could be seen from some distance away.
It was unclear if the dead were all passengers or also included people on the ground.
PIA spokesman Abdullah Hafeez said there were 91 passengers and seven crew on board the flight, which lost contact with air traffic control just after 2:30pm (09:30 GMT).
“It is too early to comment on the cause of the crash,” he told the AFP news agency.
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.
Its so heartbreaking and Devastating💔
Ya Allah Reham🙏#planecrash pic.twitter.com/9SU1v4i5O8— Zain Arshad (@ZainArshad007) May 22, 2020
Flight PK8303 was due to land in Karachi at 14:45 local time (09:45 GMT).
The Pakistan military said security forces had been deployed to the area and helicopters were being used to survey the damage and help ongoing rescue operations.
“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’s CEO Arshad Malik said in a video message released after the crash.
