Pakistan Plane Crashed in Karachi
At Least 76 people have been killed in a catastrophic plane crash in Pakistan.
A Pakistan International Airlines flight PK-8303 from Lahore, with 99 including crew members on board, crashed near the Karachi airport, just a minute before the flight was about to reach the Jinnah International Airport. The flight crashed in an area where many people live. The area was called the Jinnah Garden area near Model Colony in Malir. This place was very close to the airport.
The flight badly crashed and damaged many buildings. Many buildings were on fire. Plumes of smoke could be seen billowing in the sky as ambulances tried to make their way through. There was dark black smoke in the sky due to the crash. Pakistan's Civil Aviation Authority said that one minute before the flight crashed the pilot called the traffic control and informed them that the engine had stopped working. When the flight crashed, a team of the Pakistan Army reached the spot to help rescue everyone. But a large crowd and narrow lanes made rescue operations difficult. 25 residents of the area, injured in the crash, have been reportedly taken to hospitals.
At a press conference PIA CEO Arshad Malik said, 76 people have died so far. It will take two days to know the total number of dead. So far only one man has survived the crash. He also said that all checks and certifications had been done for the flight, nothing was pending. The airline had followed all the protocols.
The cause of the crash is not known. A device which records the activities of the fight. If there is a crash, this device helps authorities understand how the flight crashed. Once the flight recorder is found, more will be known.
Pakistan had stopped all its international flights due to the COVID-19 lockdown. They had recently started their flights and now such an incident has happened. However this is not the first time such an incident has occurred in Pakistan. In 2016, while flying from Islamabad, a Pakistan International Airlines plane burst into flames after one of its two engines failed. 40 people had died. In 2012, a flight of Pakistan’s Bhoja Air crashed due to bad weather while trying to land in Rawalpindi. All 121 passengers and 6 crew members died. In 2010, a flight of Pakistan’s Air Blue crashed near Islamabad. All the 152 people including crew members, died. This was the most dangerous plane crash in the history of Pakistan.
