Surviving Pakistan’s plane crash testifies: I unfastened my seat belt
In the plane crash in a residential area in Pakistan yesterday, 97 people are deceased, but two passengers survived the crash. Muhammad Zubair, one of the survivors, testifies. “I only saw smoke and fire. I heard screams from all sides.”
The Pakistani International Airlines (PIA) plane crashed in a residential area close to the major port city of Karachi at 9:30 a.m. local time. 97 of the 99 occupants did not survive the crash. The residential area has been completely destroyed.
It is still unclear what caused the disaster. Just before the plane crashed, the pilot reported a technical landing problem.
The black boxes have since been found and, according to a PIA spokesman, transferred to researchers who are trying to determine the cause.
Zubair, one of the two survivors, was slightly injured from the wreckage. “Ten to fifteen minutes after the failed attempt to land, the crash followed,” he testified at the hospital. “Nobody thought we were going to crash.”
For a moment, he lost consciousness. “When I regained consciousness, I saw fire and smoke everywhere. I heard screams from all sides from children and adults.”
Eventually, he managed to get out of the wreckage. ‘I clicked to open my airplane seatbelt, saw a little light, and stepped towards it. Then I had to jump down about three meters,’ he concluded.
