A Pakistan plane carrying 152 people crashed near Islamabad, leaving no survivors in what’s being called the worst air disaster in Pakistan’s history.
Islamabad, Pakistan – In what early reports are calling the worst air crash in Pakistan’s history, a plane carrying 152 passengers has crashed in the Margalla Hills to the north of Islamabad.
Tesla plane crash: Concern about airports near neighborhoods
How did a single teenage girl survive the Yemenia crash?
Though there were early reports of survivors, Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said no survivors have been recovered from the site. Efforts are underway to find the plane’s black box to determine the cause of the crash.
The Airblue Flight 202 was on its way from Karachi to Islamabad. Most passengers were Pakistani, though some reports indicate there may have been two Americans onboard. The weather in Islamabad was rainy and foggy. One report indicated the Airbus 321, which left Karachi some two hours earlier, was about to land at Islamabad airport and was asked to circle. Some eyewitnesses reported seeing the plane flying low and wobbly before crashing into the hill.
“The plane was about to land at the Islamabad airport when it lost contact with the control tower, and later we learned that the plane had crashed,” Pervez George, an official with Pakistan’s civil aviation authority told the Associated Press.
Smoke plumes from the site of the wreckage are still visible from the city as Army rescue helicopters race overhead to the scene.
Pakistani television images showed rescue workers searching for survivors among the twisted wreckage. Though early reports indicate rescue workers and Army troops were on the scene, serious rescue efforts are being hampered because the site cannot be reached by road.
Hamid Zeb Khan, Capital Development Authority’s Executive Director who headed one of the rescue teams told the Monitor, “The plane crashed into a very narrow and steep crevice and the rescuers took quite a while to get there. It took 45 minutes or so for them to reach the area.”
An Express 24/7 journalist Sabur Ali Sayed reported that the plane’s fuel tank exploded upon impact, causing a fire. According to Civil Aviation Authority officials, five children were on board. The CAA has also promised to launch an investigation into the crash.
Dr. Khan said of the initial reports of survivors, “At this stage my people have found no survivors at all. None of the people handled by my staff are alive.”
The last major air crash in Pakistan took place in July 2006, when a Pakistan International Airline Fokker F-27 crashed outside the central Pakistani city of Multan, killing 45 people.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.