A passenger plane of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) carrying some 100 people crashed in a residential area on Friday afternoon in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi, according to local media and an official. 

A spokesperson of the PIA Abdullah Hafeez told media that the passenger plane Airbus A320 crashed in the Jinnah Garden residential area near the Jinnah International Airport. 

The PIA flight PK-8303 took off from the Allama Iqbal International Airport in the eastern city of Lahore at 1:08 p.m. local time and crashed at 2:45 p.m. local time, the spokesperson said. 

The spokesperson added that the pilot of the plane told the airport control about technical fault and the plane lost contact with the control room at 2:37 p.m. local time. 

Pakistani Civil Aviation Authority said that there were 107 people on board, including 99 passengers and eight crew members. However, some local media quoted the PIA as saying that 98 were on the plane. According to a passenger list of the crashed plane available on the Internet, there were 91 passengers on board. 

Police, security forces and rescue teams rushed to the site and extinguished the fire and started a search for bodies. Rescuers have shifted six bodies to a local hospital so far, according to local media. 

An eyewitness named Umer Murtaza told Xinhua that he was inside his house when he heard a huge sound and when he came out he saw the plane had crashed in his street. 

Rescue official feared that a number of people might have been killed on the ground because the crash destroyed at least five houses, several shops and vehicles. 

The Pakistani government suspended domestic flight operations in March this year due to its measures against the COVID-19 spread. The government resumed the domestic flight operations on May 16.