Plane crash kills 22 in Pakistan
A small plane carrying 22 people crashed near the airport in Pakistan’s largest city on Friday after the pilot warned of engine troubles, an aviation official said. The two pilots and all 20 passengers were killed.
The crash near the southern city of Karachi was the second in less than four months in Pakistan. On July 28, Pakistani carrier Airblue crashed outside the capital, Islamabad, killing 152 people. It was the worst crash on Pakistani soil.
The plane that crashed Friday morning had just taken off from the Karachi airport. The pilot told the control tower minutes before the crash that there appeared to be some problem with the engine, a spokesman for the country’s Civil Aviation Authority said.
The make and model of the plane were not immediately clear.
“The plane has been destroyed,” said Lt. Colonel Noor Agha, an army official supervising recovery operations. “The dead bodies are burned beyond recognition. It could not be recognized whether they are men or women. We don’t know nationalities.”
Civil aviation officials said the small aircraft had been chartered by an Italian oil company.
Karachi is a city of more than 16 million people, and its airport hosts flights from all over the world.
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