Airline disasters in Pakistan's history

Rescue workers search for survivors in wreckage of a crashed plane on the outskirts of Islamabad. PHOTO: AFP

Pakistan has a history of aviation disasters that have killed hundreds, dating back to the 1950s.

On August 1, 1957, 24 people were killed when a Pakistan International Airlines flight crashed in the Bay of Bengal. The next year, over 20 people died when a PIA flight crashed in New Delhi.

1965 was one of the deadliest years for Pakistan International Airlines. Two flights crashed, one in the Lowery Pass, which killed 22 people. The other, was an inaugural flight that was headed to London, and crashed 12 miles away from the Cairo airport. According to a report in the Evening Independent newspaper, the Karachi-London flight was scheduled to pick up 52 passengers from Cairo. Of the 126 people on board, only six survived. Among the dead were 93 Pakistanis, while the six survivors were also Pakistani.

The report stated, “Captain Akbar Aly Khan, pilot of the four engine jet, reported engine trouble and a fire in the landing gear minutes before the crash.”

In 1970, a Fokker plane crashed soon after take-off in Islamabad, killing 30 passengers. In 1972, another Fokker plane crashed in Rawalpindi, and all 26 on board died.

On November 26, 1979, one of the worst aviation disasters in the country’s history occurred. A PIA flight crashed on take-off in Taif in Saudi Arabia, killing 156 people. The passengers included 110 pilgrims returning from Mecca. Sarasota Journal quoted a Radio Pakistan report that said that the “first indication of an emergency came when the plane’s pilot radioed ‘there was smoke in the cabin and cockpit’ and shortly after the captain called out ‘Mayday’.”

Two more Fokker crashes occurred in the 1980s. One crash, that took place in Peshawar on October 13, 1986, killed 13, while the other, on August 25, 1989, killed 54. The latter crashed in Gilgit and hikers reported seeing a low-flying plane in the area.

The October 13 crash was reportedly caused by wedding celebrations in Peshawar, according to the New York Times. The NYT quoted Dawn as saying that the crash “may have been the result of gunfire that hit the aircraft or distracted the pilot” and that “seven bridegrooms who were celebrating their marriages that night were arrested in Peshawar.”

The biggest aviation disaster to date was the PIA flight that crashed in the Nepal capital of Kathmandu in September 1992 and killed all 167 people on board. The plane burst into flames as it was about to land at the Kathmandu airport. The dead included 37 Britons and 3 Americans. A report in the Herald Scotland at the time said, “Flight PX268, en route to the Nepalese capital from Karachi, was carrying scores of European holidaymakers, many of them backpackers and members of climbing teams.”

The last major airline disaster was in 2006, when a 27-year-old Fokker plane crashed into a wheat field in Multan two minutes after taking off. The same year, Pakistan International Airlines discontinued use of Fokker planes. The Associated Press quoted a government official saying that “the planes were still airworthy and the decision to stop using them for passenger flights was made to allay people’s safety fears.”

Other airlines have also seen plane crashes within Pakistani territory, including a Soviet (now Russian) Aeroflot cargo plane that crashed in Karachi, killing 9 people.