A Pakistani plane made an emergency landing on a busy highway outside Karachi on Thursday after developing an engine fault, an aviation official said. The small plane was heading back to Karachi on a training flight from Nawabshah, 250 kilometres to the northeast, when it ran into trouble. “A small Piper plane owned by a private Schon Airlines was allowed to land on a highway after one of its two engines developed a fault,” Pervez George, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, told AFP. “A qualified pilot, along with two trainees, were on board and all three are safe,” George said. The plane came down on the highway about 75 kilometres outside Karachi.
The highway is one of the busiest in the country, connecting Karachi to the rest of the country. “The pilot asked us. He had no option but to land the plane on the highway and he safely landed,” George said, adding that highway police had helped to control traffic on the ground to ensure a safe landing.