KARACHI: A French, four-engine cargo plane crashed on Drigh Road Bridge at noon yesterday [March 8], killing four of its crew of six and seven others on the busy bridge on the National Highway.

Nine persons were seriously injured in the disaster, while many others received minor injuries.

The plane crashed right wing down on the railway line near the bridge, raced up the incline all aflame on to the bridge breaking through the concrete railings on the left hand side, broke through the railings on the right and hurtled down 30 feet on the other side of the bridge.

The oil tanks of the crashed plane exploded on the bridge and engulfed in flames a truck loaded with sand, killing instantly four coolies sitting on the sand and the driver and the cleaner in the front compartment. An autorickshaw was similarly engulfed in flames and the driver killed on the spot.

A cotton truck also received blazing splinters which set cotton bales on fire and burnt seriously a coolie sitting on the bales.

The nine injured persons included two members of the crew — the pilot, Captain Dessanaux, and ground engineer Evrard; one of the seven persons on the ill-fated sand truck; two electricians who were replacing electric lights on the bridge; the cleaner of the cotton truck, two fire-fighters and an unidentified man.

Six of the injured persons were sent home after first aid. The three others admitted to the Jinnah Hospital with serious injuries included the two members of the crew and Sarwar, 30, the sand truck coolie.

All the three injured were unconscious and were being given blood transfusion. The names of the Pakistanis killed were not known till last night. Efforts were being made to identify them.

Those killed were Co-Pilot Corrasson, Flt. Engineers Duffmi and Hurus Baert, Ground Engineer Durdilly, and truck coolies Pir Mohammed, Diwan, Gatgul, Tayam Khan and Sarwar.

The truck driver and the autorickshaw driver killed in the accident were not identified till late last night.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2017