Rescuers on Friday found the first pieces of wreckage of a plane carrying 104 passengers that crashed in a snowstorm near the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Thursday.
Afghan and international troops spent Friday scouring the mountains near Kabul for signs of the Boeing 737-200, which took off from Herat but was refused permission to land at Kabul due to bad weather.
The jet, which belonged to the private Kam Air company, was diverted to Peshawar in north-western Pakistan, but disappeared from radar screens 4,8km east of the city, the Transport Minister, Enayatullah Qasemi, said.
As daylight faded, Reuters reported that the first pieces of wreckage had been found, quoting an unnamed Western security source. There were no details of possible survivors.
Three American aid workers, nine Turks and an Italian military officer were reported to be among the 96 passengers. Six of the eight crew were from Kyrgyzstan. Lifting snow clouds during the afternoon eased the search-and-rescue operation south-east of Kabul, led by German peacekeepers stationed in the city.
Apache and Black Hawk helicopters buzzed over Khaki Jabar, a forbidding mountainous area of few roads with peaks that rise to more than 4 000m.
On the ground, an armoured German column and hundreds of Afghan troops scoured the craggy slopes in search of further wreckage.
The last confirmed communications from the Kam Air flight came at 3pm on Thursday when the pilot radioed Kabul control tower to ask for a weather update.
He was cleared for landing at the United States air base in Bagram, north of the city. But shortly afterwards the plane disappeared from radar screens, the transport minister said.
A Kam Air official said the flight contacted Peshawar airport about an hour later.
”It was given clearance to land, but it never arrived,” Zimarai Kamgar said.
The Americans on board, all women, worked for Management Sciences for Health, a charity based in Massachusetts, said William Schiffbauer, a representative in Kabul.
The Turks, who were named by their government, were mostly road construction workers.
The Herat flight is popular among wealthy Afghans and aid workers wanting to avoid an arduous road journey. But air travel has a poor safety record in Afghanistan’s largely unregulated skies.
Ninety-six people died in two plane crashes in 1998 involving the national carrier, Ariana Afghan Airlines. In March, a jet crashed into a mountain near the area currently being searched, killing 45.
Also that year, an Ariana Antonov crashed near the Pakistani city of Quetta, killing all 51 people aboard.
Continuing jitters about the airline’s safety record have led to it being dubbed ”Scaryana” among expatriates and some Afghans.
United Nations staff are barred from taking Ariana flights.
Kam Air is the country’s first private airline since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Its shareholding has been linked to the Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, who recently survived a suicide bombing attempt.
Kam Air has had some safety scares. Last September, an Antonov 24 skidded off the runway while landing at Kabul, slightly injuring some of its 27 passengers.
The American military has also suffered several crashes of which the most recent, last November in Bamiyan province, killed three soldiers and three civilians. — Guardian Unlimited Â