No fewer than 99 passengers and eight member crew are feared dead in a Pakistan International Airlines plane crash which occurred today, May 22, in Karachi on a flight from Lahore.
Aviation officials said today that the plane was flying from Lahore to Jinnah International Airport, one of Pakistan’s busiest airports.
Pictures shared on social media show smoke rising from the crash site, a residential area in Karachi.
Emergency services have arrived at the scene, where homes have been damaged.
“The plane crashed in Karachi. We are trying to confirm the number of passengers but initially it is 99 passengers and eight crew members,” said Abdul Sattar Khokhar, the spokesman for Pakistan’s aviation authority.
The crash came just days after the country began allowing commercial flights to resume.
Pakistan has a chequered aviation safety record, including a number of airliner crashes.
In 2010, an aircraft operated by private airline Airblue crashed near Islamabad, killing all 152 people on board – the deadliest air disaster in Pakistani history.
In 2012, a Boeing 737-200 operated by Pakistan’s Bhoja Air crashed in bad weather on its approach to land in Rawalpindi, killing all 121 passengers and six crew.
And in 2016, a Pakistan International Airlines plane burst into flames while travelling from northern Pakistan to Islamabad, killing 47 people.
