(Bloomberg) -- A Pakistan InternationalAirlines Corp. domestic flight carrying 48 people crashed nearthe northern city of Abbottabad on Wednesday killing everyone onboard after the pilot reported an engine failure.
The ATR-42 aircraft came down near the village of Havelianafter taking off at 3:30 p.m. local time from the northern town ofChitral, said Amir Mehboob, a spokesman for Pakistan’s CivilAviation Authority. The flight, which was heading to thenation’s capital of Islamabad, lost contact at 4:14 p.m. and caughtfire after the crash, he said by phone.
Black box recovered
There were no survivors and the pilot called “May Day” afterreporting the engine’s failure, before losing contact with aviationcontrol, Muhammad Azam Saigol, PIA’s chairman, told reporters atIslamabad airport late on Wednesday. The plane’s black box wasrecovered and there was no human error, he said. Five crew membersand one engineer were also among the 42 passengers on the flight,PIA spokesman Danyal Gilani said earlier by text message.
PIA will hold an inquiry into the crash, Saigol said, which isthe worst air disaster in South Asia’s second-largest economy sincea Bhoja Air flight came down near Islamabad in April 2012, killingall 127 people on board.
‘Very unfortunate’
The national carrier “had an excellent safety record before thiscrash,” Saigol said. “We have always emphasized on flight safety.All I can say now is it is very unfortunate.”
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