My Daily Inquirer

A Pakistani passenger plane, with 152 people on board, crashed on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad on Wednesday.

So far, 10 bodies have been recovered from the crash site, said Imtiaz Elahi, a senior government official.

Also, five people have been found alive, said Rehman Malik, the Pakistani interior minister.

The Airblue plane was headed to Islamabad from the sea port city of Karachi when it crashed in a hillside while trying to land, said Pervez George, a spokesman for the country's civil aviation authority.

The plane was carrying 146 passengers and six crew members, George said.

Four rescue helicopters were on the scene, assisting with rescue efforts. The Margalla Hills are a series of small hills north of Islamabad.

Officials do not know if weather played a factor in the crash. Pakistan is in the midst of the annual monsoon season, when rain sweeps across the subcontinent from June till September.

Airblue, a private airline company, offers flights within Pakistan, as well as to the United Arab Emirates, Oman and the United Kingdom. It makes a fuel stop in Turkey when it is flying from Manchester, England.

Irshad Kassim, the director of a local bank, flies to Islamabad every week on Airblue and was supposed to have been on the flight -- but changed his mind at the last minute Wednesday morning.

"I know Islamabad has a lot of mountains near the landing area, and there is a lot of lightning in the area," Kassim told CNN. "There was a prediction of heavy rain this morning.

"I was on the flight, booked and confirmed -- and I was going to take the flight. I decided at 6 o' clock to not take the flight because of the weather."

He said he received a call shortly after the plane went down from airline representatives asking if he knew whether a Mr. Kassim was on the flight.

"I told them 'I am so sorry, I did not cancel.' I said, 'Due to the rain, I decided not take this flight,'" Kassim said. "Then I asked 'Why are you asking? Is everything OK?'"

It was then that he found out that the plane had gone down.

"I am still numb. I am very numb. I just feel that it's fate, I guess," he said.

"After I looked at the television, I looked at the picture of my three daughters. That's a natural reaction for a father."

Posted by Jessie James