Airplane with 36 passengers missing in Afghanistan

[ejaz007]

Airplane with 36 passengers missing in Afghanistan
Updated at: 1435 PST, Monday, May 17, 2010


KABUL: A local Pamir Airways plane with 36 passengers on board has gone missing in Afghanistan, a provincial governor said on Monday.

"We are very worried that a Pamir plane might have gone down," Mohammad Omar, governor of Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan, said. He added that there were some foreigners on board.

Airplane with 36 passengers missing in Afghanistan

 

[ejaz007]

Passenger plane crashes in Afghanistan
Updated at: 1440 PST, Monday, May 17, 2010


KABUL: The police chief at Kabul airport said a passenger plane has crashed near the Salang Pass north of the capital.

Mohammad Asif Jabar Khil says the plane was carrying about 40 passengers when it went down Monday about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Kabul.

Kunduz provincial police chief Abdul Razaq Yabyaqoubi says the plane had taken off from the northern province of Kunduz at 8:30a.m. Monday.

Passenger plane crashes in Afghanistan

 

[Ahmad]

A passenger plane carrying 44 people crashed in a mountainous northern region of Afghanistan today. There was no immediate information about casualties or the nationalities of those involved.

Six foreigners were among the passengers on board the domestic flight, which came down near the 3,800m-high Salang pass, a route through the Hindu Kush mountains that connects the capital, Kabul, to the north.

Zemeri Bashary, an Afghan interior ministry spokesman, said the plane was operated by Pamir Airways, a private Afghan airline, and the government had asked Nato for assistance.

Nato said a fixed-wing aircraft had been sent to the last known position of the missing plane but poor weather was hampering the aerial search. Two Nato helicopters were dispatched to the area and others are on standby at Bagram air base and Kabul airport to assist in any rescue effort.

The plane left the northern Kunduz province at 8.30am heading for Kabul, according to the local police chief, Abdul Razaq Yabyaqoubi. It is not yet known what caused the crash but it is thought that the weather could have been a contributing factor.

General Rajab, commander of the Salang pass for the Afghan ministry of public works, said: "The weather is very bad. It is snowing. There is flooding."

Mohammad Azim, chief of police in the Jabalussaraj district of Parwan province, said the crash occurred between his district and Shotul, in Panjshir province.

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

According to its website, the airline uses Antonov 24-type aircraft for its Kunduz-Kabul flights. The two-engine turboprop can carry a maximum of 52 passengers, according to Aviation Safety Network. Production of the aircraft ended in 1979.