Pakistani authorities Saturday said they had retrieved the flight recorder of a plane that crashed three days ago near Islamabad, killing 152 people on board.

'Yes, we have found the black box. It is safe and the data can be retrieved from it,' Junaid Amin, director-general of civil aviation, said. 'The cockpit voice recorder of the plane has also been recovered.'

An Air Blue flight from Karachi crashed as it was circling in heavy rain while waiting for the runway to be cleared for landing early Wednesday. There were no survivors among the 146 passengers and six crew.

Ramzan Sajid, spokesman of the capital development authority, which oversaw the rescue operation in the forested Margalla Hills where the doomed plane went down, confirmed the recovery of the flight data recorder.

Amin said the recorders would be sent abroad for decoding.