Fiery cargo plane crash kills 11 in Pakistani city [November 28 2010]

A cargo plane crashed in flames into a residential area in Pakistans largest city soon after takeoff, killing all eight Russian crew and at least three people on the ground, officials said. The crash was the second this month in Karachi, the main port city in the south, and the third in Pakistan in less than five months.

The Russian-made plane slammed into a housing complex under construction in Karachi, sending fire and smoke into the sky and razing or damaging about 20 buildings. The aircraft narrowly missed hitting several large apartment buildings only a few hundred yards (meters) away. Authorities recovered three bodies from the smoking rubble by Sunday afternoon and one laborer was still missing, said navy Commodore Mohammad Musra. Another person on the ground was hospitalized with severe burns, said local doctor Abdul Razak.

The Sudan-bound plane crashed around 1:50 a.m., when many people in the upscale neighborhood were asleep. One of the planes engines was on fire as it flew overhead, several witnesses said. "I saw one of its wings was burning and there was a blast and the fire engulfed the aircraft very quickly," said Riaz Ahmed. Residents said most of the houses destroyed were under construction and believed unoccupied except for a few of the laborers building them. Karachi police chief Fayaz Leghari said a larger catastrophe had narrowly been averted.