Another PIA’s ATR aircraft catches fire

MULTAN (92 News) – Another ATR aircraft of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) en-route to Karachi caught fire soon after it left Multan airport. As per details, the PIA flight PK-581 had taken off from Multan airport and was en-route to Karachi when one of its engine caught fire, however, the pilot landed the safely plane. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) directed to ground all the ATR aircrafts, while the PIA dismissed media reports regarding the fire in another PIA ATR aircraft. Earlier, there were no survivors after a plane carrying 47 people crashed into a mountain in northern Pakistan, the airline's chairman said, as recovery operations continued late into the night at the remote crash site. The military said 40 bodies had been recovered and rescue efforts involved about 500 soldiers, doctors and paramedics. The bodies were shifted to the Ayub Medical Centre in nearby Abbottabad, about 20km (12 miles) away. "There are no survivors, no one has survived," said Muhammad Azam Saigol, the chairman for Pakistan International Airlines. PIA-operated flight PK661, which crashed en route from Chitral to the capital, Islamabad. Junaid Jamshed, a well-known Pakistani pop star turned evangelical Muslim cleric, was among those feared dead, an airline official said. PIA said the captain of the flight had reported losing power in one engine minutes before its plane lost contact with the control tower en route to the capital.