‘Black box’ found in Pak plane crash wreckage

Pak Army personnel remove a piece of wreckage of a plane at the site of Wednesday's air crash, near Islamabad. Rescue workers found the black box flight data recorder from the wreckage on Saturday.

Recovery workers on Saturday found the black box flight data recorder from the wreckage of Pakistan’s worst-ever plane crash, though its condition was unclear, a government official said.

The discovery could shed light on why the Airblue flight crashed on Wednesday into the hills overlooking Islamabad, killing all 152 people onboard.

The black box was found following a difficult recovery effort hampered by rain, mud and a lack of proper roads in the heavily forested Margalla Hills. It has been handed to aviation officials, said Ramzan Sajid, a spokesman for the Capital Development Authority, a government agency.

The plane - an Airbus A321 model - had been ordered to take an alternative approach to the runway at Islamabad airport but had apparently veered off course, the Civil Aviation Authority said earlier this week.

Officials said the plane had lost contact with the control tower before the crash, which occurred during stormy weather.