- NEW: 100 bodies have been recovered
- NEW: Envoy says a "black box" recorder has been found
- Plane had flown some 13,500 flights
- Plane was flying in from Karachi to Islamabad
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- A Pakistani passenger plane, with 152 people on board, crashed on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad Wednesday morning.
Hours later, rescue crews had recovered more than 100 bodies from the wreckage, said Islamabad Deputy Police Chief Bin Yamin.
There was conflicting information about possible survivors. Qamar Zaman Kaira, Pakistan's information minister, said eight people were pulled out alive, but Yamin, who is at the crash site, said crews have yet to find any survivors.
The Airblue plane was headed to Islamabad from the sea port city of Karachi when it crashed in a hillside while trying to land, said Pervez George, a spokesman for the country's civil aviation authority.
The Airbus was carrying 146 passengers and six crew members, George said.
Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik, appearing on Pakistani TV, said the plane was at 2,600 feet as it approached Islamabad but went back up to 3,000 feet before eventually crashing.
"It came from the city toward the Margalla Hills. It was raining heavily," said area resident Ahsan Mukhtar who saw the plane go down. "It shattered into pieces as soon as it crashed. A burst of flames came off, but the rain put out the fire."
The Margalla Hills are a series of small hills north of Islamabad.
Officials do not know if weather played a factor in the crash. Pakistan is in the midst of the annual monsoon season, when rain sweeps across the subcontinent from June until September.
Crews combing through the wreckage of the plane crash site in Pakistan have recovered a so-called "black box," the craft's flight data or voice data recorder -- which are actually painted orange -- that will help authorities determine the cause of the tragedy, said Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Pakistan's ambassador to the United Kingdom told CNN Wednesday.
Airblue, a private airline company, offers flights within Pakistan, as well as to the United Arab Emirates, Oman and the United Kingdom. It makes a fuel stop in Turkey when it is flying from Manchester, England.
"The aircraft was absolutely airworthy. There was nothing technically wrong," said Taheel Ahmed, a spokesman for the airline. "Right now our efforts are more concentrated toward the rescue."
Airbus issued a statement saying the Airbus A321 was delivered from the production line in 2000, leased to Airblue in 2006, and had accumulated about 34,000 flight hours in some 13,500 flights.
"In line with international convention, Airbus will provide full technical assistance to the authorities of Pakistan, who will be responsible for the investigation into the accident," the company said.
Irshad Kassim, the director of a local bank, flies to Islamabad every week on Airblue and was supposed to have been on the flight -- but changed his mind at the last minute Wednesday morning.
"I know Islamabad has a lot of mountains near the landing area, and there is a lot of lightning in the area," Kassim told CNN. "There was a prediction of heavy rain this morning.
"I was on the flight, booked and confirmed -- and I was going to take the flight. I decided at 6 o' clock to not take the flight because of the weather."
He said he received a call shortly after the plane went down from airline representatives asking if he knew whether a Mr. Kassim was on the flight.
"I told them 'I am so sorry, I did not cancel.' I said, 'Due to the rain, I decided not take this flight,'" Kassim said. "Then I asked 'Why are you asking? Is everything OK?'"
It was then that he found out that the plane had gone down.
"I am still numb. I am very numb. I just feel that it's fate, I guess," he said.
"After I looked at the television, I looked at the picture of my three daughters. That's a natural reaction for a father."
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