Authorities speculated that monsoon weather the day before may have been a factor in the crash of the Airblue flight into hills overlooking the country’s capital, Islamabad. The plane was apparently off course when it slammed into the ground, killing all 152 people on board. Army troops and civilian rescue workers searched a large stretch of the hills scorched by the crash, but tough conditions slowed the pace of operations, said Ramzan Khalid, spokesman for the Capital Development Authority, which helps deal with emergencies. Helicopters could not fly in the heavy rain, he said. An Associated Press Television News cameraman in the hills saw relatives of passengers working with soldiers and other rescuers at one crash site, where the undercarriage of the jet had come to rest. They had collected several body parts in small bags.
Dozens of relatives and friends of those killed slept outside Islamabad’s largest hospital overnight, hoping to receive bodies. They were still there Thursday morning, hugging one another as their tears mixed with the heavy rain, but few corpses were released.
The plane’s “black box” flight data recorders have yet to be recovered. Information extracted from them will be key in determining the cause of the crash.
