Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Footage on social media shows what appears to be the crash site

All 48 people on board a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane were killed when it crashed in the north of the country, officials say.

Flight PK-661 from Chitral to Islamabad went down in the Havelian area, about 70km (43 miles) north of Islamabad.

Famous pop singer turned Islamic preacher, Junaid Jamshed, was on board.

The national carrier has been accused of safety failures in the past, but insisted strict checks on this plane left "no room for any technical error".

"It is a tragic accident and we are not trying to absolve ourselves of responsibility," PIA chairman Muhammad Azam Saigol said.

"We accept that it was our aircraft, and these were our passengers, and what happened is very sad."

Mr Saigol said the company would be carrying out an investigation but the "focus at the moment is to retrieve dead bodies from the wreckage, transport them to Islamabad and hand them over to their families".

Image copyright AFP Image caption A full investigation is to be carried out

There were 42 passengers, five crew members and one ground engineer on board, the airline confirmed.

Three foreigners were among the dead, with Austria's foreign ministry later confirming two of its nationals were killed and Chinese state media saying one of its nationals was also among the victims.

'A great hero'

The plane took off from Chitral at about 10:00 GMT (15:00 local time), losing contact 90 minutes later, shortly before it was due to arrive at its destination.

Junaid Jamshed and his wife were on the flight's passenger list and multiple sources have confirmed to local media that he was on board.

Some of Jamshed's nearly half a million Twitter followers have been paying tribute to the former Vital Signs singer, whose 1987 hit Dil Dil Pakistan has been described as the country's "unofficial national anthem".

Image copyright Twitter

Among them, British boxer and Olympic silver medallist Amir Khan, who tweeted: "PIA plane crash in Pakistan. My friend @JunaidJamshedPK was on the flight also, My heart goes out to all families who lost their loved 1's".

Mr Jamshed's uncle, Sahibzada Jehangir, who was on his way to Pakistan to attend the funeral, told BBC Asian Network: "It's not only a personal loss but a national loss. And a great loss to humanity. People are still in shock. I've been talking to people all afternoon. Some have not even eaten. They are crying.

"What a contribution he made to humanity. We've lost a great hero, a great legend. A very, very sad day."

Junaid Jamshed: Pop star turned preacher

Image copyright AFP

Junaid Jamshed was one of the pioneers of Pakistan's pop scene that took off after the 1988 death of the country's conservative military dictator, Gen Ziaul Haq. Vital Signs, of which he was the lead singer, is still considered one of the best bands of that era.

After the 11 September attacks in the US, he gradually moved away from music and closer to religious circles. Influenced by Tablighi Jamaat, a global Islamic missionary movement that encourages Muslims to be more religiously observant, he grew a long beard and switched permanently to the local kurta-shalwar dressing and a preacher's turban. In this new incarnation, he evolved into a singer of na'at, or devotional Islamic hymns praising God and the Prophet Mohammad, which are sung without musical instruments.

During this period, he started a fashion-design chain called J. (J-Dot) which created fusion clothing - traditional garments with a modern touch. The chain has branches in all the major Pakistani cities, as well as in the Middle East and UK. He had three wives, the youngest of whom was with him on the ill-fated flight.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed his "deep grief and sorrow" over the crash.

Pakistani TV images showed a trail of wreckage engulfed in flames on a mountain slope.

The last major crash involving a PIA aircraft, in 2006, left 44 people dead.</s>ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan on Thursday mourned the 47 victims of its deadliest plane crash in four years, including a famed rock star-turned-Muslim evangelist, as officials sought to pinpoint the cause of the disaster.

Engine trouble was initially believed responsible, but many questions remain, stirring new worries about the safety record of money-losing state carrier Pakistani International Airlines.

The ATR-42 aircraft involved in the crash had undergone regular maintenance, including an “A-check” certification in October, said airline chairman Muhammad Azam Saigol.

“I want to make it clear that it was a perfectly sound aircraft,” Saigol said.

The aircraft appeared to have suffered a failure in one of its two turboprop engines just before the crash, he added, but this would have to be confirmed by an investigation.

“I think there was no technical error or human error,” Saigol told a news conference late on Wednesday. “Obviously there will be a proper investigation.”

Grief erupted online soon after flight PK661 smashed into the side of a mountain near the town of Havelian, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, on Wednesday, after taking off from the mountain resort region of Chitral.

It crashed just 50 km (31 miles) short of its destination, the international airport in Islamabad, the capital.

A PIA spokesman said the pilot, who issued a “mayday” emergency call before the crash, may have prevented an even bigger catastrophe by manoeuvring the plane away from populated areas.

“It seems that the pilot directed it away from people’s homes. Otherwise there could have been even more damage,” Daniyal Gillani told Reuters outside a morgue at an Islamabad hospital where bodies were being identified.

Stunned relatives gathered there, some weeping quietly, others besieging officials with questions.

“What can I tell you?” said Raja Amir, as he waited for his mother’s remains. “I don’t know what we will get of her. There is still another hell to go through.”

Remains continue to be brought by helicopter to Islamabad, where DNA tests will be used to identify them.

Television images appeared to show rescue officials retrieving the aircraft’s “black box” flight recorder from the wreckage, and the airline confirmed the recovery to the Geo News channel.

ROCK STAR AND ROYALTY

Much of the public’s anguish focused on Junaid Jamshed, the vocalist of Vital Signs, one of Pakistan’s first and most successful bands of the 1990s, who abandoned his music career in 2001 to become a travelling evangelist with the conservative Tableeghi Jamaat group.

Many comments on social network Twitter pointed up the contrast between his two roles, first as a pop sensation singing about love and heartbreak, and then as a stern, bearded preacher admonishing young people for straying from Islam.

“Junaid Jamshed’s journey was so quintessentially Pakistani. Conflicted, passionate, devoted, ubersmart, and so, so talented. Tragic loss,” Mosharraf Zaidi, an Islamabad-based development professional and analyst, said in a tweet.

Relatives console one another as they wait to supply DNA samples for the identification of remains of victims of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane crash at PIMS hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan December 8, 2016. REUTERS/Caren Firouz

Others simply shared his band’s many hits, such as ‘Dil Dil Pakistan’, which has become an unofficial anthem, played at public gatherings since its release in 1987.

Among the 46 others who perished were two infants, three foreigners - two Austrians and a Chinese man - and five crew listed on the manifest.

Foreign tourists increasingly travel to Chitral, along with numerous domestic visitors, as Pakistan emerges from years of militant violence.

The dead included a member of Chitral’s traditional royal family, his wife and family, besides a regional administrative official, Osama Ahmad Warraich, killed with his wife and infant daughter.

At a funeral for the Warraich family, Osama’s mother was seen waving at the coffins and weeping: “Let me say goodbye to my kids one more time”.

SAFETY CONCERNS

The aircraft, made by French company ATR in 2007, had racked up 18,739 flight hours since joining PIA’s fleet that year.

Its captain, Saleh Janjua, had logged more than 12,000 flight hours over his career, the airline said.

Concern is growing over air safety as media in recent years have reported several near-misses.

In the worst disaster, in 2010, all 152 people on board were killed when a plane operated by airline Air Blue crashed in heavy rain near Islamabad.

Slideshow (11 Images)

Two years later, all 127 aboard were killed when a plane operated by Bhoja Air crashed near the city.

The father of one of the crew who died lashed out at PIA and the government, saying better management could have prevented the crash.

“I have no hope,” Raja Abdul Ghaffar said after the body of his son was brought to the morgue. “I am left with nothing.”</s>(CNN) He soared to fame as the front man of one of Pakistan's most iconic pop bands. And then at the height of his career, he gave it up to devote his life to God.

Junaid Jamshed, who at one time rivaled Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt in popularity in his country, was one of at least 43 people who died when a Pakistan International Airlines flight crashed on its way from Chitral to Islamabad.

"The voice of my youth, the voice of my generation," tweeted Huma Shah , a TV broadcaster and one of many who grew up listening to Jamshed's music.

An image from Jamshed's Facebook page from October.

Jamshed soared to fame in the 1980s with Vital Signs, one of Pakistan's first pop bands.

From its look -- leather jackets, stone-washed jeans -- to its sound -- fresh, innovative, modern -- Vital Signs signaled change in a country that was just emerging from a long period of martial law and Islamization after the death of military ruler Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1988.

Vital Signs was one of those acts that was both commercially and critically lauded, and its impact is still felt in the country's pop music scene today.

After a successful career as a solo singer in the 1990s, Jamshed gave up pop stardom to focus on religious music, or nasheeds. Nasheeds are performed a cappella and are paeans to the glory of God and religion.

Even in his new incarnation, Jamshed was never far from the limelight.

He came out of the controversy unscathed and continued to amass a significant following even outside Pakistan.

Jamshed's last tweet, posted Sunday, showed pictures of "Heaven on Earth" in Chitral -- the northern city where the plane took off.

Jamshed's high-profile fans shared their sadness at the news online.

Leading Islamic scholar Mufti Ismail Menk tweeted: "May the Almighty grant ease to all in the tragedy."

While Pakistani actor and director Hamza Ali Abbasi shared image of himself with the former pop star.

And Arif Alvi, founding member of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf political party, sent prayers for his friend Jamshed.</s>A Pakistan International Airlines plane has crashed on its approach to Islambad from Chitral. Army officials say there unlikely to be any survivors. According to local media, one of Pakistan’s most famous singers, Junaid Jamshed, was on board the plane</s>The airline said the ATR-42 aircraft was carrying 48 people -- 42 passengers, five crew members and one ground engineer -- when it lost contact with a control tower on its way from Chitral to Islamabad.

Pop star-turned-preacher Junaid Jamshed was among those on board Flight PK-661, his manager, Arsalan Khan, told CNN.

Jamshed soared to fame in the 1980s with Vital Signs, one of the most iconic pop bands in Pakistan.

After a successful career as a solo singer in the 1990s, Jamshed decided to become a religious cleric.

His last tweet, posted Sunday, showed pictures of "Heaven on Earth" in Chitral -- the northern Pakistan city where the plane took off. Heaven on Earth Chitral. 

With my friends in the Path of Allah . Snowpacked Tirchmir right behind us pic.twitter.com/ZajcWEKlrG — Junaid Jamshed (@JunaidJamshedPK) December 4, 2016 Authorities have not given a number of casualties. The ATR-42, a twin-engine propeller plane, is a workhorse of short-haul flying. The aircraft's manufacturer, ATR, is a joint venture between Airbus Group and Italy's Leonardo. An ATR-42, pictured in 2011, is a twin-engine propeller plane. Pakistan, with about 190 million people, has thriving domestic air operations, connecting points across the country. But it has a checkered air safety history and suffered three fatal commercial air crashes in 2010 that claimed 185 lives, according to the Aviation Safety Network. Wednesday's crash is the first major airliner accident in Pakistan since 2012 when a Bhoja Air Boeing 737-200 crashed in bad weather while on approach to Islamabad.</s>A Pakistani plane carrying 47 people crashed Wednesday in the mountainous north of the country and burst into flames (AFP Photo/Farooq Naeem)

A Pakistani plane carrying 48 people crashed Wednesday in the country's mountainous north and burst into flames, authorities said, as rescue workers pulled dozens of bodies from the wreckage and officials expressed little hope for survivors.

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Flight PK661 came down on a flight from the city of Chitral to Islamabad, the civil aviation authority said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the crash, which occurred near the village of Saddha Batolni in Abbottabad district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The military, which was part of rescue operations, said 21 bodies had so far been retrieved from the wreckage.

"The way the plane crashed and broke into pieces, there is no chance of any survival," Sardar Aurangzeb Nalota, a local legislator, told AFP.

Villagers were collecting body parts in shawls and on woven beds, he said, while police and rescue teams were searching the site with torches.

"The fuel tank is still on fire. the plane debris is scattered in the mountains and residents told me that it is completely destroyed," Nalota said.

Ilyas Abbasi, a police official in the nearest town Havelian, said the site was more than four kilometres away over hilly terrain and had to be reached on foot.

The airline said the plane was an ATR-42 turboprop aircraft, which lost contact en route from Chitral.

"A plane has crashed and locals told us that it is on fire," Saeed Wazir, a senior local police official, said earlier.

Among those on board was Junaid Jamshed, a former Pakistani pop star turned evangelical Muslim who was embroiled in a blasphemy controversy in 2014, according to the Chitral airport manager and a local police official.

The singer's Twitter account had said he was in Chitral.

Tributes were pouring in on social media for the former lead singer of the country's first major pop band, whose popular "Dil Dil Pakistan" became an unofficial national anthem.

"The voice of my youth, the voice of my generation.... #JunaidJamshed you will be sorely missed," tweeted user Huma A Shah.

The terrain around Havelian is hilly, roughly the same altitude as the Margalla Hills which overlook Islamabad.

Pakistan's most recent air disasters involved helicopters, both in 2015.

In May that year a Pakistani military helicopter crashed in a remote northern valley, killing eight people including the Norwegian, Philippine and Indonesian envoys and the wives of the Malaysian and Indonesian envoys.

In August 2015 another army helicopter crashed killing 12 people, all military.

The deadliest air disaster on Pakistani soil was in 2010, when an Airbus 321 operated by private airline Airblue and flying from Karachi crashed into the hills outside Islamabad while about to land, killing all 152 on board.

An official report blamed the accident on a confused captain and a hostile cockpit atmosphere.

But the deadliest accident involving PIA came when an Airbus A300 crashed into a cloud-covered hillside on approach to the Nepalese capital Kathmandu in 1992 after the plane descended too early, killing 167 people.

Despite this, PIA has been crash free for 10 years, and received a 7 out of 7 rating on the highly-cited AirlineRatings.com, which launched its annual listing in 2013.

But a 2014 analysis by US statistician Nate Silver based on data from 1985 - 2014, found the airline to have a consistently high number of what he termed "near-misses" -- an indicator of risk.

Most of the carrier's fleet apart from its latest Boeing 777s were also banned entry from the European Union between March and November 2007.</s>INTERNATIONAL NEWS - A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight with 48 people on board has crashed in the north of the country.

The army has recovered at least 21 bodies from the crash site in the Havelian area, about 70km (43 miles) north of Islamabad, a military statement said.

The national carrier has been accused of safety failures in the past.

There were 42 passengers, five crew members and one ground engineer on board, the airline confirmed.

A famous former pop singer turned Islamic preacher, Junaid Jamshed, and his wife were on the flight's passenger list, according to leading private news channel GEO TV.

Flight PK-661 "lost contact with the control tower on its way from Chitral to Islamabad", the airline said.</s>A Pakistan International Airlines plane with more than 40 people on board, including a Pakistani popstar, has crashed into mountains, officials said.

The Pakistan International Airlines plane crashed in a village near the town of Havelian, about 75 kilometres north west of the capital Islamabad, senior police officer Khurram Rasheed said.

Junaid Jamshed, a Pakistani pop star turned evangelical Muslim cleric, was believed to be onboard the aircraft, according to Reuters.

Jamshed rocketed to fame in Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s as the singer for the Vital Signs rock group, and later launched a solo career, with a string of chart-topping albums and hits.

It is not clear how many passengers had been killed in the crash but officials said there were unlikely to be any survivors.

Pakistan's interior ministry dispatched a team with experts on identifying bodies through DNA tests.

State-run Pakistan Television showed a huge fire rising from the site of the crash, while villagers were seen standing nearby.

Shortly before the crash was confirmed, airline spokesman Daniyal Gilani said the ATR-42 aircraft carrying around 40 passengers and crew had lost touch with the control tower.

A local police official, Khursheed Tanoli, told state-run TV that the plane went down in a village in the north west and that rescuers are trying to reach the site of the crash.</s>ISLAMABAD — A plane belonging to Pakistan’s national carrier crashed on Wednesday with 48 people on board, apparently killing all of them, police and an airline spokesman said.

According to senior police officer Khurram Rasheed, the plane crashed in a village near the town of Havelian, located about 75 kilometres (45 miles) northwest of the capital, Islamabad. The small twin-propeller aircraft was travelling from the city of Chitral to Islamabad when it crashed shortly after takeoff.

According to Daniyal Gilani, the spokesman for Pakistan International Airlines, the plane had lost touch with the control tower prior to the crash. He said the plane was carrying 42 passengers, five crew members and a ground engineer.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. Pervez George, the spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, told The Associated Press that a team of experts would determine the cause after retrieving the plane’s black box recorder.

“I don’t think there is any chance of finding any survivors,” he said.

TV footage showed debris from the plane and a massive fire at the site of the crash. The footage showed local villagers collecting the remains of the passengers and covering the bodies with cloths.

In a statement, the military said that 36 bodies had been retrieved so far.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said at team had been dispatched to help identify the bodies through DNA tests. Authorities have released names of passengers — among them Junaid Jamshed, a famous singer-turned-Islamic-preacher.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed his “deep grief and sorrow” over the crash.

In a statement, he said “the entire nation is deeply saddened over today’s unfortunate crash and shares the grief of the families who lost their dear ones.”

Plane crashes are not uncommon in Pakistan. About 150 people were killed in a crash in the hills of Islamabad in 2010. In 2015, a military helicopter carrying several diplomats also crashed in the country’s north, killing eight people. A private plane also crashed near Islamabad due to bad weather in 2012, killing all 127 people on board.

Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan and Aqeel Ahmed in Mansehra, Pakistan contributed to this report.</s>Pakistani volunteers move remains of plane crash victims to a mortuary at a hospital, in Abbottabad, Pakistan. (Photo: AP)

Peshawar: There were no survivors after a plane carrying 47 people crashed into a mountain in northern Pakistan on Wednesday, the airline's chairman said, as recovery operations continued late into the night at the remote crash site.

The military said 40 bodies had been recovered and rescue efforts involved about 500 soldiers, doctors and paramedics. The bodies were shifted to the Ayub Medical Centre in nearby Abbottabad, about 20km (12 miles) away.

"There are no survivors, no one has survived," said Muhammad Azam Saigol, the chairman for Pakistan International Airlines. PIA-operated flight PK661, which crashed en route from Chitral to the capital, Islamabad.

Junaid Jamshed, a well-known Pakistani pop star turned evangelical Muslim cleric, was among those feared dead, an airline official said.

52-year-old Mr Jamshed, a famous evangelist and a high-profile member of the Tablighi Jamaat, was returning from Chitral where he had gone for preaching-related work.

The passenger list of the Pakistan International Airlines flight PK-661 includes Mr Jamshed and his wife's names.

PIA said the captain of the flight had reported losing power in one engine minutes before its plane lost contact with the control tower en route to the capital.

The airline said the plane crashed at 4:42 pm local time (1142 GMT) in the Havelian area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, about 40km (25 miles) north of Islamabad. Chitral, where the flight originated, is a popular tourist destination in Pakistan.

Saigol said the ATR turboprop aircraft had undergone regular maintenance and in October had passed an "A-check" maintenance certification, performed after every 500 flight hours.

He said a full investigation of the crash, involving international agencies, would be conducted.

"All of the bodies are burned beyond recognition. The debris are scattered," Taj Muhammad Khan, a government official based in Havelian, told Reuters.

Khan, who was at the crash site, said witnesses told him "the aircraft has crashed in a mountainous area, and before it hit the ground it was on fire".

Pakistani television showed a trail of wreckage engulfed in flames on a mountain slope.

Irfan Elahi, the government's aviation secretary, told media the plane suffered engine problems but it was too early to determine the cause of the accident.

In a late night statement, PIA said the plane was carrying 47 people, including five crew members and 42 passengers. Earlier, the airline had said there were 48 people on board.

The airline said two Austrian citizens and one Chinese citizen, all men, had been on board. The flight manifest showed three people on board with foreign names.

The Austrian foreign minister's spokesman later confirmed two Austrians had been killed in the crash.

A local trader at the site of the crash said the fire was still burning nearly two hours after the crash.

The military said it had sent in troops and helicopters.

"PIA is doing everything possible to help the families of passengers and crew members," the airline said in a statement.

The pop singer Jamshed, a member of one of Pakistan's first successful rock bands in the 1990s, abandoned his singing career to join the Tableeghi Jamaat group, which travels across Pakistan and abroad preaching about Islam.

In his last tweet, Jamshed posted pictures of a snow-capped mountain, calling Chitral "Heaven on Earth".

Plane crashes are not uncommon in Pakistan and safety standards are often criticised. In recent years, media have reported on multiple near-misses as planes over-ran runways and engines caught fire.

In 2010, a passenger plane crashed in heavy rain near Islamabad, killing all 152 people on board. Two years later, a plane operated by a private Pakistani company, with 127 people on board, crashed near Islamabad. All on board were killed.

PIA has also suffered major disasters in the past.

In 1979 and 1992, PIA jets crashed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and in Kathmandu, killing 156 and 167 people, respectively.

In 2006, a PIA plane crashed near the central city of Multan, killing 45 people.
A Pakistan International Airlines aircraft carrying at least 48 people, including former singer Junaid Jamshed, crashes shortly after taking off from Chitral, Pakistan.