A passenger plane carrying at least 150 people has crashed into the Margalla Hills near the Pakistani capital Islamabad, officials have said.

The accident occurred as the plane was attempting to land on Wednesday morning in bad weather.

Six passengers have been found alive and airlifted by helicopter to hospital, Haji Taj Gul, a police officer, said.

"When I came, I saw a big ball of smoke and fire everywhere with big pieces of aircraft rolling down the hill," he said.

Other sources said no survivors had been found.

Twenty-five people have been confirmed dead so far, according to a government official, but the death toll was expected to rise significantly.

"Dead bodies are lying all around and very few might have survived in the accident," Bin Yameen, a senior police official, told Reuters news agency.

"Bodies are being lifted through helicopters."

Unknown cause

Pervez George, a civil aviation official, said the plane was about to land at the Islamabad airport when it lost contact with the control tower.

The Airbus A-321 belonged to the private Airblue airline.

Raheel Ahmed, a company spokesman, said the plane was carrying 144 passengers and six crew members.
"Apparently the cause of the crash is bad weather, but we leave that to the investigators," he told the AFP news agency.

"We are now preoccupied with rescue work and striving to take care of the relatives of the passengers who were on board."

A thick plume of smoke was seen rising from the forested hills.

The army said it was sending special troops to the area to help out along with
helicopters.

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said there had been heavy rain in the area in the morning.

"Visibility was very poor... Questions are now pointing at why the airplane would try and land considering weather conditions were so bad," he said.

"What will be critical is finding the black box which will give the final moments of the cockpit conversation that will give better clues into what happened."

The plane plummeted into a gorge between two hills and the distance to the nearest road was complicating the rescue operation.

"There is no village nearby and there is no ground link to the crash site. It took us one hour and 15 minutes to reach here from the nearest road, Aitbar Khattak, a rescue official, told state television.

Wreckage on fire

Fakhar Ur Rehman, a correspondent of AAJ TV reporting from the scene, said rescue teams were heading to the scene on foot.

"They are climbing over the hills to reach the plane," he told Al Jazeera.

"The major issue now is how to get the bodies out of the rubble. There's smoke emitting from the debris and they're also trying to extinguish the fire."
The ED202 flight was headed from Karachi to Islamabad.

Hundreds of friends and relatives of those on board the flight gathered at the Islamabad airport seeking information.

"Nobody is guiding anyone. People are running from one counter to another," Arshad Mahmood, whose brother was on the flight, said.

"I'm praying for his survival, but I think there is little hope," Mahmood said.

Pakistan-based Airblue started operations in 2004 and is flying to many cities in Pakistan as well as five destinations in the Middle East and the UK.

The only previous recorded accident for Airblue was a tailstrike in 2008 at Quetta airport by one of the airline's Airbus 321 jets.

There were no casualties in that incident and damage was minimal, according to the US-based Aviation Safety Network.

PHOTO CAPTION

A video grab shows debris from a commercial Pakistani passenger plane lying scattered amid shrubbery in hills near the capital, Islamabad, July 28, 2010.

Al-Jazeera