Pakistan plane crash kills 45

‘‘All 41 passengers and four crew members on board the plane have died,’’ said Iftikhar Babar, the district coordination officer for Multan.

Malik Bashir, PIA’s station manager at Multan airport, confirmed there were no survivors. He said the cause of the crash was not yet known, but ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack on the plane.

A female flight attendant who was pulled alive from the plane’s wreckage died later at a hospital, airline security official Mohammed Iqbal said.

President General Pervez Musharraf expressed grief over the crash and ordered an investigation to determine the cause, state-run Pakistan Television reported.

Bashir said flight PK-688 took off normally on a flight to Lahore at around 12:05 pm. ‘‘Whatever happened to it was after takeoff,’’ he said. ‘‘The plane has burned completely and bodies are being pulled out of the wreckage.’’

After firefighters doused the fire, rescuer workers pulled bodies from the smoldering wreckage. The fire left the plane’s fuselage a blackened hulk and its seared tail lay on its side.

Fifteen bodies were recovered and taken to the morgue at state-run Nishtar Hospital in Multan, said Mohammed Irafan, a doctor with Edhi Foundation, a Pakistani charity that responds to emergencies.

At least eight fire trucks helped put out the blazing wreckage.

–PKHALID TANVEER