Pakistan plane crash: `Survivors unlikely`

There are unlikely to be any survivors from a Pakistani plane carrying up to 47 passengers that crashed near Abbottabad, a government official has said.

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) said PK 116 lost contact with the control tower en route to the capital, Islamabad, from the northern region of Chitral.

The plane crashed in the Havelian area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, about 125 km (77 miles) north of Islamabad.

"All of the bodies are burned beyond recognition. The debris is scattered," Taj Muhammad Khan, a government official based in the Havelian region, told Reuters.

Mr Khan, who was at the site of the crash, added that witnesses told him "the aircraft has crashed in a mountainous area, and before it hit the ground it was on fire".

The Pakistani pop star turned evangelical cleric Junaid Jamshed was on the plane when it crashed, according to the passenger manifest.

Mr Jamshed retired from music in 2001 and announced he was devoting his life to Islam.

Images shown on Pakistani TV channels and circulated on social media showed a trail of wreckage engulfed in flames on a mountain slope.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) put the number of people on board at 47 but Sohail Ahmed, a PIA official in Chitral, said there were 41 people on board, including four crew members.

"Rescue teams are reaching the scene of the crash, and then we will know more," Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Pervez George told Reuters.

There were no immediate details on casualties but Pakistan`s interior ministry dispatched a team with experts on identifying bodies through DNA tests.

Shortly before the crash was confirmed, Daniyal Gilani, the spokesman for PIA, said their ATR-42 aircraft carrying around 40 passengers and crew had lost touch with the control tower.

"PIA`s ATR-42 aircraft operating as PK-661, carrying around 40 persons lost its contact with the control tower on its way from Chitral to Islamabad a short while ago," Mr Gilani tweeted.

"All resources are being mobilised to locate the aircraft."

Geo News and Dawn News TV stations, citing civil aviation sources, said the plane lost contact with civil aviation authority at around 4.30pm (11.30 GMT).

Former national cricket captain and founder of the Pakistan Movement for Justice Imran Khan said he was "shocked and saddened" by the crash.

Plane crashes are not uncommon in Pakistan and safety standards are often criticised. In recent years, the media has reported on multiple near-misses as planes over-run runways and engines caught fire.

In 2010, a passenger plane crashed in heavy rain near Islamabad, killing all 152 people on board. Two years later, a plane operated by a private Pakistani company, with 127 people on board, crashed near Islamabad. All on were board killed.