MULTAN: A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) passenger plane crashed in fields on the outskirts of the central city of Multan yesterday, killing all 45 people on board."Everyone is dead," police chief Iftikhar Babar said as he stood at the spot where the Fokker aircraft, laden with fuel, exploded in flames after hitting a mango orchard wall.
Flight PK 688, en route for Islamabad via Lahore, was carrying 41 passengers and four crew.
The passengers included two high court judges, a university vice chancellor and two military brigadiers, he said.
The Fokker F-27 turboprop, built in 1964, crashed around 1.5km from the airport, just two minutes after take off, Farooq Shah, PIA Deputy Managing Director told a news conference in Karachi.
Rescue workers from the privately run relief foundation Edhi, the Civil Aviation Authority and troops helped recover the pasengers' remains and sift wreckage for clues to the cause of the crash.
"There are few bodies which are identifiable," said Shahid Pervez, a civil defence official, as rescue workers loaded charred corpses into ambulances.
Police chief Babar quoted some witnesses as saying they saw flames coming from the aircraft shortly after it took off, and it appeared to be tilting to the right.
"I saw the plane diving downwards. It hit electricity wires and then crashed after hitting a wall of an orchard," said Mohammad Akram, a farmer who was working in his fields. He said the plane burst into flames after impact.
The crash occurred near a state primary school, but there were no casualties other than those on board, officials said.
Senior ranking members of the military and judiciary were among the passengers, according to officials in Multan.
"We can't say now why the plane crashed. the captain did not make any contact with (the control) tower," the PIA's Shah said, adding that, according to the record of the last 15 days, there was nothing wrong in the aircraft.
President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz both expressed their grief, according to state-run Pakistan Television. An inquiry was ordered.
It was the third Fokker Friendship operated by PIA to have crashed since 1970.
Shah said there were no plans to ground the remaining seven Fokkers in PIA's fleet.
Crash chronology
List of major plane accidents in Pakistan or involving Pakistani aircraft:
May 20, 1965 - A PIA Boeing 720 crashed while landing near Cairo, killing 119.
April 21, 1969 - 44 people were killed when an Indian Airlines Fokker Friendship crashed while attempting to land at an airport in Sindh province.
August 6, 1970 - A PIA Fokker Friendship crashed while trying to land in severe weather in Islamabad. 30 people died.
November 26, 1979 - A PIA Boeing 707 crashed in Saudi Arabia after the plane caught fire. 156 people died.
March 30, 1987 - A Bakhtar Afghan Airlines Antonov AN-26 crashed in northern Pakistan, killing 40.
August 17, 1988 - Military ruler General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Raphael were killed when Zia's C-130 military transport plane exploded after take-off near Bahawalpur, Punjab province.
August 25, 1989 - A PIA Fokker Friendship crashed in northern Pakistan, killing 54.
September 28, 1992 - A PIA Airbus A300 crashed into a hillside in Nepal, killing 167.
February 20, 2003 - A Fokker Friendship belonging to the Pakistan Air Force crashed into a fog-covered mountain in the North-West Frontier Province. Mushaf Ali Mir, the head of the air force, is among the 17 killed.
February 24 - A twin-engined Cessna 402 plane crashed into the sea off southern Pakistan, killing an Afghan Minister for Petroleum and Mines Juma Mohammad Mohammadi and seven others.
