Pakistani television shows thick black smoke rising from the place where a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane crashed on Friday. The aircraft, which was carrying more than 100 people, crashed in a residential neighborhood in the southern capital, Karachi.
“The plane crashed in Karachi. We are trying to confirm the number of passengers, but initially it was 99 passengers and eight crew members, "Abdul Sattar Khokhar, spokesman for the aviation authority of Pakistan, adding that the flight came from Lahore, the country's second city.
Flights had resumed for a few days
The Pakistani military tweeted that it had sent a rapid response force, along with paramilitary elements, to the scene of the accident, who arrived there. The disaster comes just days after the country authorized the resumption of domestic commercial flights. For more than a month, domestic connections had been suspended to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Very few international flights had been maintained.
Pakistan has a mixed record for aviation safety, with frequent civil and military plane and helicopter crashes having occurred over the years. The last major air accident in Pakistan dates back to December 2016, when an airliner of the national company PIA carrying out an internal flight had crashed in the mountainous north of the country, killing 47 people.
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