Search continues for wreckage of Afghan passenger plane that crashed with 44 aboard

Search continues for downed Afghan passenger plane

SALANG PASS, Afghanistan — Wails of sadness echoed across a snowcapped mountaintop Tuesday as relatives grieved over 44 people aboard a passenger plane that crashed into a northern Afghan range a day earlier.

Government and NATO rescue helicopters whirred overhead in a so-far fruitless search for the wreckage of the Pamir Airways flight, which vanished with no distress call while flying from the city of Kunduz to the capital, Kabul.

Three British citizens and an American were among the passengers, U.S. and British diplomats said. The nationalities of two other foreigners aboard the plane were not immediately available.

Air traffic controllers lost contact with the aircraft when it was about 55 miles (85 kilometers) north of Kabul, prompting rescue workers to rush to the Salang Pass, a major route through the Hindu Kush mountains that connects the capital to the north.

Aerial searches by the government and NATO’s International Security Assistance Force resumed at dawn Tuesday after being hampered Monday by dense fog and darkness.

“Right now, we are looking to identify the location of the crash,” President Hamid Karzai told a news conference. “In some areas, the bad weather — snow, rain and fog — will not let us do the search. We’re very hopeful that we will able to find the victims of the crash soon and hand the bodies over to their families.”

Abdul Shakour, a district official in Parwan province, said seven tribal elders in the area where the plane was last reported had each pledged to send two or three experienced climbers to search the remote area.

For families of those aboard the aircraft, however, despair turned to anger over delays in finding the wreckage. Some arose before sunrise to trek up to the mountain pass to search at daybreak.

“People are very upset with the government because it has no forces here to help us. And these 48 countries in ISAF, where are they today?” said Mohammad Isahq, a Kabul shopkeeper whose nephew, Omar Sahel, was a flight attendant on the plane.

Isahq said the families were ready to search themselves if authorities provide them with proper equipment and point them in the right direction.

“We have high-ranking government officials sitting back in their offices with their luxury chairs and all that and they are not doing anything for us,” he said.

Frustrated over what they perceived as a lack of progress, small bands of civilians set out up the rocky mountainside on foot in a desperate hunt for clues, as pilots flew in and out of billowy clouds in hopes of spotting the wreckage.

“I have come here to look for the dead body of our relative or see if he is wounded — or any sign of him,” said Jamal, whose brother-in-law was aboard the plane. “We have got six or seven relatives looking for him.”

“So far we have nothing,” said Jamal, who uses only one name, as he sat on a rock with his head cupped in his hands. “This is the emergency time. They (the Afghan government) should help us.”

Men in tears collapsed into the arms of loved ones. Others at the search site sat on granite boulders, their faces buried in traditional scarves.

Six crew members and six foreigners were among the 44 aboard, according to Deputy Transportation Minister Raz Mohammad Alami, who traveled to the region with top government officials.

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

Pamir’s chief executive officer, Amanullah Hamid, said the plane was an Antonov An-24 type aircraft and 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 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. A total of 143 have so far been lost in accidents, according to the Aviation Safety Network’s statistics.

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Associated Press writers Amir Shah in Kabul, Slobodan Lekic in Brussels and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.