Eyewitness says pilot tried to land twice before crash.

Byline: Shazia Hasan

KARACHI -- 'It tried to land twice but its wheels were not coming out. And its belly touched the runway before the pilot pulled it up again. The second time he did that I saw one of its engines was on fire because it had brushed the runway. It didn't return a third time but crashed here,' said Ijaz Masih, who witnessed the crash of the Pakistan International Airlines flight PK8303 in Model Colony, just a stone's throw away from the Karachi airport on Friday afternoon.

The aircraft, an Airbus A320 carrying 91 passengers and eight crew members was coming to Karachi from Lahore before it crashed in the densely populated locality.

'I'm just a sweeper. I'm no expert. I was waiting for the flight to land and the passengers to disembark before I could go inside to clean the plane ahead of its next journey. But I wish the pilot had just landed in the muddy side strips of the runway instead of going up again and again,' said Masih, the eyewitness.

Rescue work hindered by onlookers

He was accompanying the PIA Emergency Response Unit in Model Colony where the plane crashed eventually on top of some residential buildings killing and injuring several inhabitants. 'I still remember the plane's individual number painted on its side 'BLD',' he added.

Moving scenes witnessed in hospitals where dead and injured of Model Colony plane crash were taken; narrow lanes, crowding hamper relief work in congested locality

There was chaos all around the narrow streets of the Model Colony neighbourhood with so many people gathering to watch the charred bodies being pulled out, some from the broken plane and the others from the buildings.

They were being baton-charged and slapped by policemen to get out of the way as ambulances and fire tenders were unable to reach the exact site of the crash due to the narrow streets. Then a wall in one of the buildings' parking lots had to be knocked down to bring the dead and injured out from there.

It was true that the people were a huge hindrance in the rescue work and in the way of the many ambulances and fire tenders there. Then their idea of getting out of the way was to climb on the roof of an area school, the Al Khadeeja Public School, from where they could get a good view of the burning plane and the buildings with the rescue work under way.

Among the rescuers were several people from PIA who were also there to volunteer any help like Masih.

Dr Mazhar Naeem from PIA's Medical Unit said that they were also...