Islamabad: At least one passenger survived the crash of a Pakistani airliner that went down on Friday in a residential area of Karachi, a government official said.
Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah inquired after the health of banker Zafar Mahmood, who miraculously survived, a provincial government spokesman Abdur Rashid Channa said in a statement.
When the chief minister said "Murad is here", the survivor replied "Thank you so much. God has been merciful", the statement said.
Pakistan's civil aviation authority said there had been 91 passengers and eight crew on board the Airbus A320.
Pilot sent Mayday with 'lost engines'
The pilot of the crashed jet sent a Mayday and told controllers the aircraft had lost power from both its engines on its second attempt to land, according to a recording posted on monitoring website liveatc.net.
After the aircraft reportedly called off an earlier attempt to land and went around for a second attempt, a controller radioed the pilot of flight 8303 that he appeared to be turning left, suggesting he was off-course.
The pilot replied, "We are returning back, sir, we have lost engines," and the controller cleared the plane to land on either of Karachi airport's two West-Southwest-facing runways.
Twelve seconds later the pilot called "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday" and was again cleared to use either runway. There was no further communication from the aircraft, reported to be an Airbus A320, according to the audio from liveatc.net, a respected source for in-flight recordings
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