PESHAWAR-
The initial report of attack on Peshawar’s Bacha Khan International Airport on Tuesday night has been prepared, reported a private news channel on Wednesday.
According to the report, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Flight PK 756,coming from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, landed safely three minutes after it was attacked midair by an unnamed ‘militant group based in Darra Adamkhel.’
Sub Machine Guns (SMGs) were used in the attack and the bullets hit the engine no.2 and the same side of the plane, it added.
The report added that a woman was killed when she was hit with a bullet. The victim belonged to Ziarat area of District Nowshera.
Two flight attendants also received injuries in the attack and are under medical treatment.
The flight operation was suspended after the event. It was resumed on Wednesday as a private airlines flight arrived from Abu Dhabi.
On Tuesday night at around 11pm, armed men fired at the plan at the time of its landing. Around 178 passengers and 12 crew members were on board the PIA flight and the aircraft was flying at an altitude of 1,500 metres.
Police sources said that the aircraft was targeted from the University Road area in Tehkaal and police and security forces had cordoned off the airport premises and launched a search operation in the area to trace the perpetrators.
This is the third such incident at the Bacha Khan Airport.
On April 29, rockets were fired on Bacha Khan International Airport (BKIA) that hit an army barrack on Khyber Road. On February 26, two rockets landed inside Peshawar airport however no damage was reported.
The suspected attack follows a major Taliban assault on Karachi airport earlier this month that killed at least 32 people, including all 10 Uzbek terrorists affiliated with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The security was put on a high alert around the Bacha Khan Airport area amidst the military’s ongoing Operation Zarb-e-Azb against terrorists in North Waziristan Agency, one of the country’s seven semi-autonomous tribal agencies next to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of which Peshawar is the capital.