Tracing 8 fatal plane crashes of Pakistan airlines between 1965 and 2020

A Pakistani International Airlines flight with 99 people onboard crashed on Friday in a crowded neighborhood near the airport in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi after an apparent engine failure during landing. According to the officials, there were at least three survivors from the plane, and it was unknown how many people on the ground were hurt, with at least five houses destroyed.

News agency Associated Press reported that a transmission of the pilot Sajjad Gul’s final exchange with air traffic control, posted on the website LiveATC.net, indicated he had failed to land the aircraft and was circling over the congested neighbourhood of Model Colony to make another attempt.

Airworthiness documents showed that the plane last received a government check last year on November 1. The international airline’s chief engineer signed a separate certificate n April 28 confirming that all due maintenance of the aircraft that crashed had been conducted. The aircraft, certificate stated, is “fully airworthy and meets all the safety” standards.

The papers confirming the ill-fated aircraft’s ownership showed that the Airbus A320 had been previously used by China Eastern Airlines from 2004 to 2014, following which it was inducted in PIA's fleet, news agency AP reported.

Here is a look at previous fatal crashes of Pakistani International Airlines:

• 1965 - PIA Flight PK 705: A Boeing 720 airliner crashed on May 20, 1965 while descending at Cairo International Airport. Of the 121 passengers and crew on board, all but 6 were killed. This was the inaugural flight of the airline to Cairo which crashed on its efforts to land. The accident, the fourth and worst involving a Boeing 720, was the deadliest to occur in Egypt at the time and remains the third-deadliest.

• 1966 - PIA Flight PK 17: On February 2, 1966, a Sikorsky S-61 twin-engined helicopter crashed near Faridpur on a flight from Dhaka to Faridpur after an oil leak developed in the aircraft and the main gearbox failed. 20 passengers and three crew members onboard were killed. One passenger survived.

• 1979 - PIA Flight PK 740: A Boeing 707 and also a Hajj flight originating from Kano, Nigeria to Karachi was on its way from Jeddah Saudi Arabia crashed shortly after take off from Jeddah International Airport on November 26, 1979. All 156 people on board were killed.

• 1989 - PIA Flight PK 404: Logging a mysterious disappearance with no wreckage in sight, a Fokker F27 Friendship went missing from the radar shortly after takeoff on August 25, 1989.The flight took off from the northern city of Gilgit and was on its way to Islamabad. The aircraft is believed to have crashed in the Himalayas, but the wreckage has never been found.

• 1992 - PIA Flight PK 268: In what has been known as the deadliest aviation accident on Nepal’s soil, an Airbus A300 headed to Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport on September 28, 1992 crashed killing all167 people onboard.

• 2006 - PIA Flight PK 688: A Fokker F27 from Multan to Lahore and Islamabad crashed into a field when one of its two engines failed shortly after take-off on July 10, 2006. The aircraft was carrying 41 passengers and four crew members who were killed.

• 2016 - PIA flight PK-661: A Fokker F27 carrying 48 passengers and crew crashed on its way to Islamabad from Chitral on December 7. There were no survivors reported from the fatal crash.

• 2020 - PIA flight PK 8303: An Airbus A320 carrying approximately 91 passengers and seven crew members from Lahore to Karachi crashed on May 22, 2020 in a densely populated locality as it approached the Karachi airport for landing.