Pakistani plane crashes with 48 on board, including famed singer-turned-evangelist Junaid Jamshed

Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan —  A passenger plane crashed into a steep hillside Wednesday in northern Pakistan, killing all 48 people on board, including one of the country’s most famous recording artists.

The aircraft belonging to Pakistan International Airlines, a state-owned carrier with a spotty safety record, was en route from the border town of Chitral to Islamabad, the capital, but lost contact with air traffic controllers about 20 minutes before it was due to land at 4:40 p.m.

The plane was carrying 42 passengers, five crew members and a ground engineer, airline officials said. Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority confirmed that there were no survivors.

Rescue and investigation teams had reached the crash site near the town of Havelian, about 45 miles northwest of Islamabad, and recovered most of the bodies from the wreckage.

Irfan Elahi, secretary of the aviation authority, said initial reports indicated one of the two engines of the small twin-propeller ATR 42-500 aircraft was out of order. He declined to reveal further details of the crash, saying teams were focused on recovery efforts.

“Searching for the black box is also a high priority,” Elahi said.

The Pakistani military said that 40 bodies had been recovered from the crash site by late Wednesday.

Among those on board was Junaid Jamshed, one of Pakistan’s leading recording artists and fashion designers, who two decades ago became an Islamic evangelist. He and his wife had traveled to Chitral, where he had given religious lectures, said a friend, Jawad Waseem.

Scores of family members of passengers streamed into Benazir Bhutto International Airport in Islamabad, crowding help desks set up by the airline and the aviation authority.

One man, who gave his name as Kashif, said he had come in the faint hope that his cousin, Nauman, had survived.

“He is an engineer and has five sisters and one brother,” Kashif said with tears in his eyes. “His parents and siblings are in such a bad condition. Pray that he would be alive.”

One civil aviation source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said that engineers had not given the aircraft clearance to fly because one of its two engines was out of order.

If true, that would be “a serious violation, and both PIA and CAA officials will have to come up with answers,” Shahid Latif, a retired vice-marshal in the Pakistani Air Force, said in an interview.

Pakistan International Airlines has had one of the worst safety records of any national airline, according to the Flight Safety Foundation. Before Wednesday, the carrier had 12 fatal crashes since 1970, the deadliest in 1992 when an Airbus A300 slammed into a hillside while attempting to land in Katmandu, Nepal, killing all 167 people on board.

Special correspondent Sahi reported from Islamabad and staff writer Bengali from Amritsar, India.

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UPDATES:

11:20 a.m.: This article has been updated throughout with staff reporting and a revised total of 48 people on board.

6:33 a.m.: This article has been updated with a comment from Pakistan’s aviation authority and additional details

5:06 a.m.: This article has been updated with a report that the missing plane has crashed.

This article was originally posted at 4:25 a.m.