Charred remains of Pakistan plane crash victims wrapped in CLOTH BUNDLES as rescuer workers tell of horrific scenes at crash site

RESCUE workers have told of nightmarish scenes at the site of a Pakistan plane crash which killed 48 people yesterday.

The aircraft, belonging to Pakistan's national carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), crashed in a massive fireball on Wednesday, killing all 48 people on board, the airline chairman and police said.

And emergency workers and volunteers have now revealed the horror that awaited them when they arrived at the site of the disaster.

Altaf Hussain, a rescue worker who transported the remains of passengers in an ambulance, said the hellish crash site smelled of burnt flesh and oil and that body parts were scattered everywhere.

"We collected the burned bones of the ill-fated passengers and wrapped them in cloth," he said.

Ambulance driver Duray Hussain said the remains of the passengers were "beyond recognition".

One official, Farman Ghori, was crying outside the hospital, saying he saw the faces of two toddlers among the remains.

"Oh God, I never saw such a tragedy," Ghori said.

TV footage showed debris from the plane and a massive fire at the site of the crash.

Local villagers were seen collecting the remains of the passengers and covering the bodies with cloths.

Several bodies were later transported to the Ayub Medical Complex, where mourning relatives began arriving to collect the remains of their loved ones.

Among them was tearful Ghulam Rasool Khan, 24, who said his brother Umair Khan was on board the plane.

Ghulam asked police to allow him to identify his brother's body – but police officer Iqbal Khan told him there was no point as, "there is nothing left which you can recognise".

Senior police officer Khurram Rasheed said the plane crashed in a village in the district of Abbottabad, 45 miles north-west of the capital Islamabad.

The small twin-propeller plane was travelling from the city of Chitral to Islamabad when it came down shortly after take-off.

Rasheed said the rescue mission had now ended, adding that emergency workers had transported the remains of the passengers to a local hospital, where doctors were performing DNA tests to identify them.

Government official Taj Muhammad Khan said a witness told him "the aircraft has crashed in a mountainous area, and before it hit the ground it was on fire".

According to PIA spokesman Daniyal Gilani, 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.

Two Austrians and a Chinese citizen were also among the dead, he said.

PIA has released names of passengers, who included Junaid Jamshed, a famous singer-turned-Islamic-preacher.

"There are no survivors. All passengers and members of crew are dead," Azam Sehgal, chairman of the PIA told a news conference at the Islamabad airport late Wednesday, adding that the plane's black box recorder had been found.

Sehgal said the plane’s pilot told air traffic controllers at 4.09pm that there was a technical fault in one of the aircraft’s engines.

Moments later he made a “mayday call,” before the plane vanished from radar screens.

Sehgal said the aircraft was fit to fly and it was unclear what caused the crash.

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, with around 150 people 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.

And a private plane came down in bad weather near Islamabad in 2012, killing all 127 people on board.

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