(Bloomberg) -- A Pakistan International Airlines Corp. domestic flight carrying 48 people crashed near the northern city of Abbottabad on Wednesday killing everyone on board after the pilot reported an engine failure.

The ATR-42 aircraft came down near the village of Havelian after taking off at 3:30 p.m. local time from the northern town of Chitral, said Amir Mehboob, a spokesman for Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority. The flight, which was heading to the nation’s capital of Islamabad, lost contact at 4:14 p.m. and caught fire after the crash, he said by phone.

Black box recovered

There were no survivors and the pilot called “May Day” after reporting the engine’s failure, before losing contact with aviation control, Muhammad Azam Saigol, PIA’s chairman, told reporters at Islamabad airport late on Wednesday. The plane’s black box was recovered and there was no human error, he said. Five crew members and 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 is the worst air disaster in South Asia’s second-largest economy since a Bhoja Air flight came down near Islamabad in April 2012, killing all 127 people on board.

‘Very unfortunate’

The national carrier “had an excellent safety record before this crash,” Saigol said. “We have always emphasized on flight safety. All I can say now is it is very unfortunate.”