Pakistan airlines crash kills all 48 on board after engine fails

(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.”

Toulouse, France-based ATR, which calls itself the world leader on the market for below-90-seat regional aircraft, said in a statement that “the circumstances of the accident are unknown.” Founded in 1981, ATR is owned by  Airbus Group SE and Leonardo-Finmeccanica SpA of Italy and has sold more than 1,500 aircraft. The plane that crashed was made in May 2007, according to tracking website Flightradar 24.

State-owned PIA has had a turbulent year after labor unions and staff, who number about 18,000, in February protested plans by the government to sell a 26 percent stake in the airline to private investors.

Frequent labor strife

Moves by the management attempting to turn around the airline have been hobbled by the frequent labor strife and the company hasn’t made an annual profit in the past decade, while losing market share to Gulf carriers such as Emirates Airline and Etihad Airways PJSC. Losses more than tripled to 27.8 billion rupees ($265.2 million) in 2015 from 2010, director Amir Ali told lawmakers in January.

PIA’s shares fell 4 percent on Wednesday, though news of the crash came out after the market close in Karachi, the commercial capital. The airline has risen 29 percent this year, compared with the 36 percent gain of Pakistan’s benchmark index.

Related: An adventure in flying: The 16 least-safe airlines

Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.