Plane crash at residential area kills 12 in Pakistan's Rawalpindi district

RAWALPINDI - A trainer plane of Pakistani army crashed at a residential area on early Tuesday morning in Pakistan's eastern district of Rawalpindi, killing at least 12 persons and leaving 10 others injured, local media and military said.

The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Pakistani army's media wing, said in a statement that the trainer plane of Pakistan Army Aviation was on its routine training mission when it crashed on the outskirts of Rawalpindi city.

All five people, including two pilots, have died in the crash, said the ISPR.

According to the reports, the training jet crashed at a residential area of Jabbi village and destroyed at least four houses, which caught fire after the crash.

Yousaf Awan, an eyewitness who entered the core site after 1 hour of the accident, told Xinhua that the plane crashed on a house and half of the house totally collapsed, severely damaging adjoining five to six makeshift houses surrounding it.

Afterwards, a fire broke out within a 100-meter radius, and it was later controlled.

Rescue teams, police and security forces rushed to the site and shifted the bodies and injured to hospitals. District Emergency Officer Abdur Rehman told media that they have shifted 12 bodies and 10 wounded to three different hospitals in Rawalpindi city.

An emergency has been declared in all the hospitals in Rawalpindi and in the neighboring capital city Islamabad. The emergency official feared that the death toll might further rise as six of the wounded are in critical condition due to severe burn injuries.

An eyewitness named Raheem told Xinhua on the spot that the plane was descending with a strange sound and it made a circle over the area before crashing at the residential area.

Another eyewitness, Mehtab, said that he saw rescuers shift at least 20 people whose bodies were completely burnt in the fire.

Fire fighters have extinguished the fire and rescue teams are now removing debris of the collapsed houses to find out if there were other people buried underneath, the reports added.

The army media wing has not disclosed the reason for the crash yet.