Four pilots killed, five injured in plane crash in Pakistan(Update Plane Crash)

Islamabad, May 17 (Xinhua-ANI): At least four pilots were killed and five people were injured when two Pakistan Air Force (PAF) trainer planes crashed after bumping into each other on a training mission Thursday morning, army and police sources said.

The PAF confirmed, in a short statement following the incident, the death of all the four pilots on the two planes, and said an inquiry had been ordered.

Muhammad Hussain Khan, District Police Officer of Nowshera where the crash took place, said five people on the ground were also injured in the incident.

The crash took place at about 10:20 a.m. local time when two PAF trainers planes hit each other in the air while on a routine training flight over the Rashakai area of Nowshera, a district lying some 100 kilometers northwest of the country's capital Islamabad.

One plane crashed into the field while another came down on a house in a residential area of Rashakai.

Huge fire erupted in the residential area following the plane crash. Rescue team and fire fighters were called in following the crash.

The injured have been rushed to nearby hospital. Conditions and identities of the injured are not known at this moment.

The two planes hit each other in the air during the training mission after they took off from a PAF air base in Risalpur, a neigboring town lying less than ten kilometers to the north of Nowshera, said police.

It is the second crash of PAF aircraft in a week.

On May 11, a Mirage jet fighter of PAF crashed near Karachi.

The PAF now operates a fleet of the French-built Mirage III and Mirage V aircraft procured between 1968 and 2000. The Mirage fleet has suffered a total of seven crashes since their induction into the PAF. Pakistan has been trying to phase out the older generations of its Mirage fleet with the newer JF-17 Thunder aircraft,jointly developed by Pakistan and China. (Xinhua-ANI)