Pak plane with 127 people crashes near Islamabad, no survivors

Up to 130 people were killed after a Boeing 737 crashed while trying to land in bad weather near Islamabad, Pakistan, on Friday.

The Bhoja airline flight from Karachi went down in a farmland, a few kilometres away from the Benazir Bhutto International Airport, defence minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhar said.

He said civil aviation officials had reported it was unlikely anybody had survived. Police too said there was no chance of anyone surviving the crash. “It will be only a miracle… The plane is totally destroyed," an officer said.

There were conflicting reports about how many people were on board the plane. A senior defence ministry official said initial reports suggested there were 126 people on board, Pakistan's civil aviation authority said it was carrying 121 passengers and nine crew, while the chief of Islamabad police Bani Amin told agencies from the crash site that 127 were on board.

Saifur Rehman, an official from the police rescue team, said the plane came down in Hussain Abad village, about 3km off the main Islamabad highway. “Fire erupted after the crash. The wreckage is on fire… We have come with teams of firefighters and searchlights and more rescuers are coming,” he said.

An airport source said the plane had been due to land at Islamabad airport at 7:20pm IST but lost contact with the control tower at 7:10pm IST and crashed shortly afterwards before reaching the runway. Bhoja Air re-launched domestic operations with a fleet of five 737s in March, according to newspaper reports.