In a tragic report, none of the 48 people on board a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) aircraft that crashed into a mountain in northern Pakistan yesterday survived the accident, the airline’s chairman has said.
Muhammad Azam Saigol told a press conference late on Wednesday, “There are no survivors, no one has survived,” this was about five hours after flight PK661 from Chitral to the capital, Islamabad, crashed near the town of Havelian, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
The airline had previously declared 48 people were on board the aircraft.
Saigol further went on to say that the ATR-42 aircraft had gone through regular maintenance and had in October passed an “A-check” certification, conducted after every 500 hours of flight operations.
“I think that there was no technical error or human error … obviously there will be a proper investigation,” he said.
Flight PK-661 is said to have gone down on its way from Chitral to Islamabad.
Reports revealed that all on board, including the famous pop singer turned Islamic preacher, Junaid Jamshed, died when the plane crashed in the Havelian area, about 70km (43 miles) north of Islamabad.
The national carrier has been accused of safety failures in the past.
“No one survived,” a Civil Aviation Authority spokesman told AFP.
The death toll was confirmed by Danyal Gilani, a spokesman for Pakistan International Airlines.
There were 42 passengers, five crew members and one ground engineer on board, the airline confirmed.
The plane had taken off from Chitral around 10:00 GMT, and lost contact 90 minutes after, shortly before it was due to arrive at its destination.
Junaid Jamshed and his wife were on the flight’s passenger list and multiple sources have confirmed to local media that he was on board.
The Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed his “deep grief and sorrow” about the crash.”
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