Pakistan Plane Crash Kills 127
A Boeing 737 belonging to Pakistani airline Bhoja Airlines has crashed Friday near the city of Rawalpindi, according to Pakistani media. The Pakistani Defence Ministry has confirmed the accident. Express News reports that according to a police official there were 127 passengers and crew on board, and rescuers said that nobody has survived. Earlier reports indicated that there were 122 people on board.
Flight B4 213 was en route from Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, to the capital Islamabad in the north of the country. It was expected at 6:40pm local time, reported Pakistan's Geo News.
Air traffic control did not report receiving any distress calls from the plane, which went down in bad weather moments before landing, 10 km (6 miles) from the Islamabad airport. Authorities haven't indicated a possible cause for the crash.
Bhoja Airlines is a small airline operating a handful of Boeing 737 jets of the older 200 and 400 series, no longer produced by Boeing.
The airline's website states that Bhoja was founded in 1993 and restarted operations recently after being grounded for some time.
.According to airline fleet tracking site CH Aviation, Bhoja has four 737-200 aircraft, originally belonging to British Airways, and one 737-400 that used to fly with German airline Lufthansa. All five planes are at least 20 years old. According to several aviation sites, the aircraft that crashed was a 737-200 built in 1980.
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