Ninety-seven bodies have been pulled from smoldering rubble in Karachi, Pakistan, where a plane crashed Friday shortly before 3 p.m. local time.
The death toll from a Pakistan International Airlines flight that crashed during a second landing attempt in Karachi on Friday rose to 97 on Saturday. Two passengers survived the incident, and no fatalities have been reported among people on the ground in the densely populated residential neighborhood where the crash-landing occurred, although eight people were injured, three of whom remain hospitalized. All residents have reportedly been accounted for.
One of the surviving passengers, Mohammad Zubair, said the flight from Lahore was smooth until the descent, when the pilot came on the intercom to say the plane was experiencing engine trouble and the landing could be “troublesome,” adding that that was the last thing he remembered before waking up in what The Associated Press called a “scene of chaos.”
The Airbus A320’s black box, which includes the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, was found and is under review. PIA’s chief executive, Arshad Malik, said the last message received from the pilot indicated the plane was experiencing a technical problem, and a senior aviation official told Reuters it looked like the plane was unable to lower its landing gear on the first landing attempt
