Passenger plane crashes in Afghan mountains

Aircraft carrying 44 people, including 6 foreigners, was en route to Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan - Dense fog hindered rescuers who fanned out across mountainous terrain on Monday to search for the wreckage of an Afghan passenger plane that vanished with 44 passengers on board. There was no immediate word of casualties.

After receiving tips from local residents who heard a loud bang, Afghan authorities rushed to the Salang Pass, a major route through the Hindu Kush mountains that connects the capital to the north. Late Monday night, they said they suspected the plane may have gone down farther south, closer to its destination of Kabul International Airport.

The plane, operated by Pamir Airways, a private Afghan airline, was traveling from Kunduz in northern Afghanistan to the capital. Myar Rasooli, the head of Kabul airport, said air traffic controllers' last contact with the plane was when it was about 55 miles (85 kilometers) north of Kabul. He said there was no distress call from the plane.

U.S., British citizens aboard
The British embassy in Kabul confirmed that three British citizens were aboard the plane, but did not identify them. One American also was aboard, according to a State Department official in Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity pending notification of family. The nationalities of the two other foreigners were not immediately available.

Six crew members were among the 44 aboard, according to Deputy Transportation Minister Raz Mohammad Alami, who traveled to the crash site with the minister of aviation and other top government officials.

Ismail, a 35-year-old snowplow driver who lives in a village near the pass, said he was taking a morning break when he heard the sound of a crash.

"It was as if there was an accident of two vehicles. I didn't know what it was," said Ismail, who goes by one name.

At the request of the Afghan government, NATO dispatched a fixed-wing plane to the last known position of the aircraft. Capt. Robert Leese, a spokesman for the NATO air unit assisting in the search, said the U.S. plane got within four miles (seven kilometers) of the suspected crash site, but had to turn back because of bad weather.

"The fog was so bad you couldn't tell where the mountain began and the fog ended," Leese said.

NATO helicopters were on standby at Bagram Air Field and at the Kabul airport to assist in any rescue effort, NATO said in a statement. The Afghan Defense Ministry also ordered the nation's air force to be on standby. Ambulances also were dispatched to the pass.

When low cloud cover and fog hampered the aerial search, about 70 rescue workers began ascending the mountains on foot to find the wreckage. That foot patrol, which included the governor of Parwan province, descended the mountains about an hour later after authorities began to suspect that the plane had traveled farther south toward Kabul before going down.


Alami said authorities now believe the plane crashed about 12 miles (20 kilometers) north of the capital, possibly in the Ghorband district of Parwan province. He said the governor had asked officials in the province's dozen districts to help locate the wreckage.

‘Nobody is providing us any information’
Jaweed Stanikzai, the brother of a passenger on the plane, told The Associated Press at the Kabul airport that he last talked to his brother at 8 a.m.

"He told us that he was on the plane and could not talk, but would call us as soon as he could," he said. "Nobody is providing us any information about the incident."

Kabul-based Pamir Airways started operations in 1995. It has daily flights to major Afghan cities and also operates flights to Dubai and Saudi Arabia for the hajj pilgrimage.

According to its website, Pamir uses Antonov An-24 type aircraft on all its Kunduz-to-Kabul flights.

Pamir's chief executive officer, Amanullah Hamid, said the plane was last inspected about three months ago in Bulgaria.




The An-24 is a medium-range twin-turboprop civil aircraft built in the former Soviet Union from 1950 to 1978. Although production there ceased more than three decades ago, a modernized version is still being made in China.

It is widely used by airlines in the developing world due to its rugged design, ease of maintenance and low operating costs. It is designed to operate from remote, unprepared airstrips with austere navigational aids.

A total of 143 have so far been lost in all sorts of accidents, according to the Aviation Safety Network's statistics.

Searches have reached the crash site no survivors were found

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Searchers found no survivors Friday among 44 people on board an Afghan commercial airliner that crashed this week on a remote mountain north of the capital of Kabul, the aviation minister said.

The Antonov-24 operated by Pamir Airways disappeared Monday on a flight from Kunduz to Kabul. The wreckage was spotted Thursday by a search plane on a 13,500-foot (4,100-meter) mountain in Shakar Darah district north of Kabul.

Aviation Minister Mohammadullah Batash told The Associated Press that ground searchers reached the site Friday but found no survivors.

Three Britons and one American were among eight foreign passengers on the plane along with nationals from Pakistan and Australia, according to chief aviation investigator Ghulam Farooq. He did not have precise numbers for Australian and Pakistani passengers.

Russia's Itar-Tass news agency said three Tajikistan citizens working for the airline were also aboard, possibly among the crew.

Photos supplied by NATO forces show the plane broken into four pieces and strewn across a steep mountainside about 24 miles (38 kilometers) north of Kabul. Bad weather and the rugged mountain terrain hampered the search.

Afghan military search teams collected body parts strewn among traces of snow on the high plateau where the plane went down, according to Associated Press Television News video. Parts of the aircraft slid down a ravine and slammed into a boulder.

The cause of the crash, which occurred in heavy fog, has not been determined. The airline denied allegations of lax safety procedures made by an American photojournalist who said she took a Pamir flight from Kunduz to Kabul on May 4.

Stephanie Sinclair said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that during the flight, the pilot allowed several passengers to enter the cockpit even though there was turbulence and bad weather. They remained there until the plane landed.

"The whole thing was extremely reckless behavior on everyone's part. I did complain to a Pamir flight attendant during the flight and then also to the airport office manager when we landed," Sinclair said. "I was assured by the flight attendant that it was 'perfectly safe' for there to be these irregularities."

Khalilullah Fruzi, a co-owner of Pamir, dismissed the allegations as "propaganda by our competitors."

"It is wrong, it is illegal," Fruzi said. "There is no additional space for another person in the cockpit. Our pilot was a Tajik-Russian and we never heard such allegations."

Kabul-based Pamir Airways, named after the mountain range of Central Asia, began operations in 1995. It has daily flights to major Afghan cities and flies to Dubai and Saudi Arabia for the hajj pilgrimage.

Pamir's chief executive officer, Amanullah Hamid, said the plane was last inspected about three months ago in Bulgaria. The An-24 is a medium-range twin-turboprop civil aircraft built in the former Soviet Union from 1950 to 1978. A modernized version is still made in China.

It is widely used by airlines in the developing world due to its rugged design, ease of maintenance and low operating costs.