The military said 40 bodies had been recovered and rescue efforts involved about 500 soldiers, doctors and paramedics. The bodies were shifted to the Ayub Medical Centre in nearby Abbottabad, about 20 kilometres away.

"All of the bodies are burned beyond recognition. The debris is scattered," said Taj Muhammad Khan, a government official based in the Havelian region, who attended the crash site. He said it was unlikely there would be survivors.

PIA said its plane lost contact with the control tower en route to the capital, Islamabad, from the northern region of Chitral. The plane crashed in the Havelian area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, about 125 km north of Islamabad.

Pakistan's civil aviation authority said the short-haul airliner, an ATR-42, had 47 people on board, while the airline said it had "around 40".

Junaid Jamshed, a well-known Pakistani pop star turned evangelical Muslim cleric, was on board the crashed aircraft, according to  a PIA official in Chitral. Jamshed, a singer in one of Pakistan's first major rock bands in the 1990s, abandoned his singing career to join the Tableeghi Jamaat group, which travels across Pakistan and abroad preaching about Islam.

The airline said two Austrian citizens and one Chinese citizen, all men, had been on board. The flight manifest showed three people on board with foreign names.

"The aircraft has crashed in a mountainous area, and before it hit the ground it was on fire."

Local newspaper The Express Tribune posted photographs of what it said was the fiery crash site.

The photographs showed flames covering a blackened hill, with debris including the plane's fuselage spread across the mountainside.

Pakistani politician and former cricketer Imran Khan said he was "shocked and saddened" by the crash.

"May Allah give the families of the deceased courage to bear their loss," he wrote.

Irfan Elahi, the government's Aviation Secretary, told media the plane suffered engine problems but it was too early to determine the cause of the accident.

A local trader at the site of the crash said the fire was still burning nearly two hours after the crash.

"They are removing body parts," Nasim Gohar told Geo TV.

The military said it had sent in troops and helicopters.

A PIA spokesman said the dual turboprop engine plane lost contact with the CAA at about 4.30 pm.

"PIA is doing everything possible to help the families of passengers and crew members," the airline said in a statement.

Reuters

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