DNA testing to identify victims of PK-661 air crash

ISLAMABAD: DNA testing will be used to identify the 48 charred victims of the plane crash in the mountainous north of Pakistan, authorities said Thursday, as the country mourned one of the worst aviation disasters in its history.

23 bodies brought to Islamabad

Remains of victims of the PIA PK-661 are being brought to Islamabad for DNA testing. In its first phase 23 bodies reached Islamabad, via three Army helicopters.

A PIA plane carrying 47 people crashed Wednesday on a domestic flight from the mountainous northern city of Chitral to Islamabad, killing all on board.

The plane took off from Chitral around 3:50PM and PIA said the plane crashed at 1642 local time (1142 GMT) in the Havelian area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, about 125 km north of Islamabad.

The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight crashed into a hillside after one of its two turboprop engines failed while travelling from the city of Chitral to the capital, and burst into flames killing everyone on board.

“The dead bodies will be taken to Islamabad in helicopters ... for DNA testing and identification,” Muhammad Abbas, a hospital official at Ayub Medical Complex in the northern garrison town of Abbottabad, told AFP.

“Not one body was intact,” he said.

Three helicopters provided by the army will assist with the operation, the Inter-Services Public Relations said.

The helicopters will be used to shift the victims' remains to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad and the Combined Military Hospital in Rawalpindi.

Rescuers, including hundreds of villagers, had overnight pulled charred and smoking remains from the wreckage of the aircraft, parts of which were found hundreds of metres away from the main site in Abbottabad district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

An AFP reporter at the site near the village of Saddha Batolni said part of the plane remained on fire more than five hours after the crash.

“The bodies were burnt so badly we could not recognise whether they were women or men,” a villager in his thirties, who declined to give his name, told AFP.

“We put into sacks whatever we could find... and carried them down to the ambulance.”

Six of the victims had already been identified through fingerprints, according to Ali Baz, another official at the Ayub Medical Complex.

Details of the identified passengers were pasted on the wall outside the mortuary.

Meanwhile, PIA spokesman Daniyal Gilani issued a statement saying that "on the directions of Chairman and CEO PIA, an amount of Rs500,000 cash is being given to the next of kin of each of the 47 persons who lost their lives in the tragic ATR crash, to meet with funeral expenses”.

"District managers have been directed to personally visit the residences of the deceased and hand over the amount in cash," he said.

"This will be followed by a comprehensive compensation package as per law," the statement said.

The aircraft issued a Mayday call at 4:14 pm (1114 GMT) Wednesday before losing radar contact and crashing.

PIA chairman Azam Saigol said the nine-year-old plane was deemed to be “technically sound” when it last underwent a detailed inspection in October.

“Our focus now is to retrieve all the dead bodies,” he added, vowing a full investigation into Flight PK-661.