Two passengers survived, but 97 bodies were recovered from the scene, spokesman for Pakistani armed forces Babar Iftikhar said on Saturday.
The jet crashed into a residential area, but the plane did not hit any buildings and no one on the ground appears to have been killed, Deputy Marshal Air PIA Marshal Arshad Malik added.
Iftikhar said that army troops, rangers and social welfare organizations contributed to the research.
He added: “97 bodies recovered. 2 surviving passengers. 25 affected houses vacated, their residents housed in various places with the assistance of the civil administration.”
The plane took off from Lahore and was due to land at 2.30pm. local time in Karachi but disappeared from radar, PIA spokesman Abdullah Khan told CNN.
The pilot on board reported to Karachi air traffic control that he had lost his engines before the plane crashed on Friday.
“We are proceeding directly, we have lost the engines”, the pilot can be heard of the plane’s approach, in an audio recording of the aircraft communications obtained by CNN from a Pakistani government source.
In the registration, air traffic control asks the pilot to confirm that the plane will have a belly landing, a situation in which a plane lands without distributing its landing gear.
The pilot’s response is imperceptible. It is unclear why air traffic control was discussing such a landing.
A few seconds later, the pilot can be heard listening to several calls, followed by an air traffic control response that says both runways are free to land. The audio then stops.
Khan confirmed the authenticity of the registration.
“[The pilot] he was told that both runways were available for its use, but he preferred to use the circular landing route, we are examining the technical problem. Our prayers for lost lives, “said Khan last Friday.
Sophia Saifi reported from Islamabad and Rob Picheta wrote from London. Adeel Raja, Laura Smith-Spark and Sandi Sidhu contributed to the report.
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