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Soldiers and rescue workers survey the wreckage of a Boeing 737 airliner that crashed in Islamabad yesterday |
Grieving relatives claiming the remains of loved ones at a hospital expressed grief and anger over the crash in a storm as the plane approached Islamabad on a flight from Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial hub.
Armed police kept media out of the Institute of Medical Sciences in the capital where the remains were stored.
With wreckage scattered over a square km of wheat fields, officials said there were no survivors.
“We are trying to find out whether the life of the plane was over, whether it was a technical fault, whether it was sabotage or any other reason,” Interior Ministers Rehman Malik told reporters.
He said a committee had been set up to investigate the crash. Malik said the owner of Bhoja Air, Farooq Bhoja, had been barred from leaving the country to ensure his co-operation with the investigation. “Action will be taken, and will be seen to have been taken, I promise you,” he said.
The airline insists the crash was caused by bad weather as the plane tried to land at Islamabad’s international airport during a thunderstorm and not a technical problem as was widely speculated.
Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) officials said the second-hand Boeing 737-200 was nearly 30 years old, but an airline spokeswoman said the plane’s age had no bearing on the tragedy.
“The aircraft was old and second hand but it is not something unusual. The fleet of state-run Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) also runs old aircraft,” Bhoja Air official Masham Zafar said.
“There was no technical issue and bad weather is to be blamed.”
She said the plane left Karachi with CAA approval and was given clearance to land at Islamabad.
Boeing offered “profound condolences” to the victims’ families and said it would provide technical assistance to the investigation into the Bhoja crash.
Military and aviation officials said bad weather was probably behind the crash, as there was a hail and thunderstorm over the city at the time.
A senior PIA engineer said the age of the aircraft mattered less than its flying hours, and said he thought an air pocket — a patch of low air pressure — could be to blame.
“Since it was approaching the airport to land it was obviously flying low — between 3,000 and 4,000 feet above the ground,” he said.
“Visibility was also low because it was raining and there was thunder and lightening. The pilot lost control and apparently failed to lift it out of the air pocket.”
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, speaking outside the hospital, said: “Until investigations are completed, we cannot jump to any conclusions.”
Bhoja Air started flights in 1993 but suspended operations eight years later because of financial problems. It resumed domestic flights only last month.
The plane’s “black box”, which records flight data, was recovered last night, rescue authorities said.
Bhoja officials were not immediately available for comment.
Many of the relatives gathered at the hospital had flown up from Karachi yesterday morning for the task of identifying victims.
Women and men sobbed openly and pushed reporters away.
“My brothers are gone! My brothers are gone!” wailed Mohamed Shahzad, slumping to the ground by the hospital entrance.
One brother had been identified, he said, the other remained missing. Both had been on a day-long business trip linked to the transport company run by the three siblings.
“We don’t know what to tell the kids, we don’t know what to tell my mother,” Shahzad said. “They keep calling. I told them there was an accident and we don’t know anything yet.”
Ayesha Ishaque pressed her face against a light brown wooden coffin labelled “Body 140”. Her brother, Mohamed Saud Ishaque, had been returning home from studies in Karachi.
“Why has God done this to my brother,” she wailed.
Some gurneys with body parts in bags were taken inside. Also visible were clear plastic containers with bone fragments with labels like “bone from foot”, “bone from arm” and “rib”.
Three men from the national database agency were taking a cigarette break from identifying the bodies from fingerprints.
“We’ve identified at least 73 bodies so far, and at least 25 will have to be sent for DNA testing because their hands and digits could not be read,” said one man, clearly exhausted, his latex gloves and blue overalls covered with blood stains.
A coffin periodically passed through the crowd with a piece of paper on top bearing the victim’s name and identification number. Bystanders threw rose petals over the grim procession.
Security was intensified at Islamabad’s Benazir Bhutto International Airport. Some women had their bags emptied and each item checked.
“I’m feeling okay to fly,” said Mohamed Ehsan, 47, an engineer who had been scheduled to travel on the plane on the return flight to Karachi that it never made.
“I was in shock last night. When I saw the pain and grief the relatives were feeling I just couldn’t think of taking a flight last night. I am grateful for being alive.”
In July 2010, an AirBlue jet slammed into the mountains ringing Islamabad on a foggy morning, killing all 152 aboard. Two other crashes that year killed 33 people.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed condolences to Pakistan over the crash. Agencies