ISLAMABAD, Dec 7 (Reuters) - None of the dozens of people on board a Pakistan International Airlines aircraft that crashed into a mountain in northern Pakistan on Wednesday survived the accident, the airline’s chairman said.

“There are no survivors, no one has survived,” Muhammad Azam Saigol told a press conference late on Wednesday, about five hours after flight PK661 from Chitral to the capital, Islamabad, crashed near the town of Havelian, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

The airline had earlier announced 48 people were on board the aircraft.

Saigol said the ATR-42 aircraft had undergone regular maintenance and had in October passed an “A-check” certification, conducted after every 500 hours of flight operations.

“I think that there was no technical error or human error ... obviously there will be a proper investigation,” he said.