Plane carrying 152 crashes in Pakistan

The cause of the Airblue crash was not immediately clear, said Pervez George, a civil aviation official. He said the plane had left the southern city of Karachi at 7:45 a.m. for a two-hour scheduled flight to Islamabad and was trying to land during difficult weather. Airblue is private service based in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city.

"The plane was about to land at the Islamabad airport when it lost contact with the control tower, and later we learned that the plane had crashed," George said, adding that the model of the plane was Airbus 321 and the flight number was ED202.

Guards with the forestry service said they had found some wreckage and seen at least five dead bodies, said Imtiaz Inayat Ali, an official with Islamabad's Capital Development Authority. Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik said at least five wounded passengers had been rescued.

Pakistani news channels showed what appeared to be wreckage of the plane as a helicopter hovered above the heavily forested hills to assess the situation. Fire was visible and smoke was blowing up from the scene. The army said it was sending special troops to the area to help out along with helicopters.

Mohammed Usman, an official at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport, said dozens of relatives of passengers gathered there were crying and desperate to get information about their loved ones.

Saqlain Altaf told Pakistan's ARY news channel that he was on a family outing in the hills when he saw the plane, looking unsteady in the air.

"The plane had lost balance, and then we saw it going down," he said, adding he heard the crash.

Officials at first thought it was a small plane, but later revised that. George said 146 passengers were on the flight along with six crew members.

Raheel Ahmed, a spokesman for the airline, said an investigation would be launched, but that for now the focus was to find survivors. The plane was no more than eight years old, and it had no known technical issues, Ahmed said. He added that to his knowledge, the pilots had not sent any emergency signals.

Airblue flies within Pakistan as well as internationally to the United Arab Emirates, Oman and the United Kingdom.

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