A cargo plane, with eight crewmembers on board, crashed into a residential area minutes after take-off from the Karachi airport in the early hours of Sunday.
Spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority Pervez George said it was a Russian-built Ilyushin IL-76 cargo plane bound for Sudan.
There was no official word on casualties, but reports said all eight crewmembers were killed while the number of fatalities on the ground was not known till filing of this report – however, the flames had been successfully doused.
The plane crashed in a naval housing scheme in PNS Bahadur, in the Dalmia neighbourhood of Karachi, five minutes after take-off from the Jinnah International Airport.
“The right engine of the plane caught fire and it came down while making a turn,” Muhammad Usman, an eyewitness, told The Express Tribune.
Nisar Ali was sitting at his home with friends about one kilometre away. “At first we thought it was a flare and then we ran to the area and realised it was a crash,” he said.
Another witness said the plane crashed into an under-construction building and several unoccupied buildings nearby caught fire.
A series of small explosions followed the crash and the wreckage of the plane burnt as fire tenders from the nearby naval establishment rushed to the site to douse the inferno.
According to sources in the Civil Aviation Authority, the plane had flown into Karachi from the United Arab Emirates. And it was carrying 31 tons of cargo from Karachi to Sudan.
It is the second air crash in Karachi this month. On November 5 a small plane chartered to an international oil company crashed after takeoff from Karachi airport, killing all 21 on board.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 28th, 2010.
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