Pakistan International Airways crash 'leaves no survivors'

There were no survivors when a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane with 48 people on board crashed in the north of country, officials have said.

Flight PK-661 went down on its way from Chitral to Islamabad. All on board, including the famous pop singer turned Islamic preacher, Junaid Jamshed, died

when the plane crashed in the Havelian area, about 70km (43 miles) north of Islamabad. The national carrier has been accused of safety failures in the past. "No one survived," a Civil Aviation Authority spokesman told AFP.

The death toll was confirmed by Danyal Gilani, a spokesman for Pakistan International Airlines. There were 42 passengers, five crew members and one ground engineer on board, the airline confirmed. The plane took off from Chitral at about 10:00 GMT (15:00 local time), losing contact 90 minutes later, shortly before it was due to arrive at its destination.Junaid Jamshed and his wife were on the flight's passenger list and multiple sources have confirmed to local media that he was on board.

Junaid Jamshed was among the pioneers of Pakistan's pop scene that took off after the 1987 death of the country's conservative military dictator, Gen Ziaul Haq. Vital Signs, of which he was the lead singer, is still considered one of the best bands that created original music.

After the 11 September attacks in the US, he gradually moved away from music and closer to religious circles, where he was influenced by the rising tide of the evangelical Tablighi Jamaat of revivalist Islam. He grew a long beard and switched permanently to the local kurta-shalwar dressing and a preacher's turban. In this new incarnation, he evolved into a singer of na'at, or devotional Islamic hymns praising God and the Prophet Mohammad, which are sung without musical instruments.

During this period, he started a fashion-design chain called J. (J-Dot) which created fusion clothing - traditional garments with a modern touch. The chain has branches in all the major Pakistani cities, as well as in the Middle East and UK. He had three wives, the youngest of whom was with him on the ill-fated flight. Some of Jamshed's nearly half a million Twitter followers have been paying tribute to the former Vital Signs singer, whose 1987 hit Dil Dil Pakistan has been described as the country's "unofficial national anthem".

Among them, British boxer and Olympic silver medallist Amir Khan, who tweeted: "PIA plane crash in Pakistan. My friend @JunaidJamshedPK was on the flight also, My heart goes out to all families who lost their loved 1's." Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed his "deep grief and sorrow" over the crash. Pakistani TV images showed a trail of wreckage engulfed in flames on a mountain slope. The last major crash involving a PIA aircraft, in 2006, left 44 people dead.