Zomi Information and Resource Center

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A Pakistani passenger plane crashed in the hills surrounding Islamabad yesterday, killing all 152 people on board — including two Americans — in the country’s deadliest domestic air crash, officials said.

The Airbus A321, operated by Airblue, a private aviation service, was arriving from Karachi and trying to land in Islamabad in a monsoon downpour. It crashed in the nearby Margalla Hills, about 9 miles from the airport.

Television footage of the fiery crash site showed fog and smoke rising from the mountains. Burning wreckage of the fuselage, wings, and engines was scattered across the forest floor, and twisted metal parts hung from trees.

The chairman of Islamabad’s Capital Development Authority, Imtiaz Inayat Ali, said all 146 passengers and six crew members were killed.

Richard Snelsire, a spokesman for the US Embassy here, confirmed that two American citizens were among the dead. He released no information on them, but a relative identified one as Rosie Ahmed of Gadsden, Ala.

Paulette Kirksey said Ahmed, her godmother, had taken the flight with her husband, Saleem Ahmed, a Pakistan resident. Rosie Ahmed was in Pakistan to make arrangements for him to move to the United States, Kirksey said. She said Rosie Ahmed was in her late 50s.

The plane departed Karachi at 7:50 a.m. for the two-hour flight to Benazir Bhutto International Airport in the capital. Most of the passengers were Pakistanis.

“It is not yet clear what is the actual cause of the plane crash,’’ Pervez George, a civil aviation authority spokesman, said in an interview, but he speculated that bad weather played a part. He said the control tower lost contact with the plane as it was about to land. “We got the news later that it had crashed in the Margalla Hills.’’

The wreckage scorched a wide stretch of the hills area, including a section behind Faisal Mosque, one of Islamabad’s most prominent landmarks.

Islamabad Police Chief Bin Yamin said rescue teams from the police force, army, and other organizations rushed to the crash site, which was difficult to access because of thick woods in the area.

A huge explosion was heard after the crash, and fire spread fast in the woods, Yamin said. Smoke could be seen rising from the crash site. Rescue teams recovered most of the remains within several hours of the crash, he said.

When rescue work was suspended overnight last night, 115 bodies had been recovered, federal Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said. DNA tests would be needed to identify most of them, he said.

The government said today will be a day of mourning, and condolences poured in from the United States, Britain, and other nations.

Witnesses said the plane appeared to be unsteady in the air before the crash.

Shahid Ameen, who was in a nearby residential area at the time, said he saw the plane on a low flight pattern. He said it looked “as if the plane had lost balance before I saw it coming down.’’

Hundreds of people went to Islamabad’s largest hospital and the airport seeking information on loved ones.

They swarmed ambulances reaching the hospital, but their hopes fell as rescue workers unloaded body bags. A large cluster of people also surrounded a passenger list posted near the Airblue counter at the airport.

“We don’t know who survived, who died, who is injured,’’ said Zulfikar Ghazi, who lost four relatives. “We are in shock.’’

The Pakistan Airline Pilot Association said the plane may have strayed off course, possibly because of the poor weather. Several officials noted the plane crashed in an area that seemed distant from a usual flight path.

“It should not have gone so far,’’ said Air Vice Marshal Riazul Haq, deputy chief of the Civil Aviation Authority.

Raheel Ahmed, a spokesman for the airline, said the plane had no known technical issues, and the pilots sent no emergency signals. Airblue flies within Pakistan and to the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and the United Kingdom.

Airbus said it would provide technical assistance to the crash investigators. The aircraft was initially delivered in 2000, and was leased to Airblue in January 2006. It accumulated about 34,000 flight hours during some 13,500 flights, it said.

Airblue began flying in 2004. A tail-strike in May 2008 at Quetta airport, with no casualties, was its only previous accident.

The last major plane crash in Pakistan was in July 2006 when a Fokker F-27 twin-engine aircraft operated by Pakistan International Airlines, the country’s national carrier, slammed into a wheat field on the outskirts of the central Pakistani city of Multan, killing all 45 people on board.