At least 19 people were killed early Tuesday when a Pakistani army plane crashed into a residential area in Rawalpindi while on a training flight, officials said on Tuesday.
The small aircraft crashed into houses on the outskirts of the city, near the capital Islamabad, before dawn, the military said in a statement. It gave no immediate comment on the cause of the crash.
A huge fire then engulfed the debris of the plane and at least five houses, burning the victims to death, local rescue official Abdul Rehman said.
At least 14 bodies had so far been retrieved from the rubble, another rescue official, Farooq Butt, said. The dead comprised all five crew members and 14 civilians.
Some of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition and DNA testing was being conducted to identify them, Butt added.
Nearly a dozen injured people were pulled from the debris and were being treated in hospitals, he said.
Videos and photographs uploaded onto social media showed huge flames rising from the houses and several people wailing and crying.
‘Oh God, what has happened to us. My sister and her entire family is killed,’ an elderly man said on Pakistan's Geo television station.
The military said the rescue operation was almost complete and that evidence was being collected from the wreckage for an investigation.
