Night halts search for plane

2005-02-04 19:20

Kabul, Afghanistan - Nato forces on Friday suspended for the night their ground and air search for an Afghan passenger jet carrying 104 people, including about 19 foreigners, after it disappeared from radar screens during a snowstorm near the mountain-ringed capital.

As temperatures plunged overnight, relatives and officials expressed growing fear that any of the missing can be found alive after what could turn out to be the war-ravaged country's deadliest aviation disaster.

The Kam Air Boeing 737-200 took off on Thursday from the western city of Herat bound for Kabul, but was unable to land because of poor visibility. The airline initially said the plane was diverted to neighbouring Pakistan, but officials there said it never reached their airspace.

Afghanistan's Nato peacekeeping force sent helicopters and ground teams to scour an area south-east of the city, where officials said the plane was last located on Thursday afternoon, but they returned to base empty-handed as freezing fog enveloped the high ground.

Nato and Afghan officials denied reports, including one from the Turkish government, that the wreckage had been located, and said they would widen their search when it resumed early on Saturday.

French Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Poulain said from Nato headquarters in Kabul that helicopters had failed to pick up any signal from the plane's on-board rescue beacon.

"We did not find the wreckage," Poulain said. "With the snow storm of last night, it would not be easy to survive" in the freezing mountains, he said.

Kabul is surrounded by towering, frigid peaks, a hazard that usually sees commercial aircraft grounded during bad weather. Veterans of the battle-scarred airport tell tales of hair-raising approaches and close calls, and the area toward the Pakistani border is so remote that officials suspect militants including Osama bin Laden have hidden there since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

The clouds lifted for several hours on Friday afternoon, presenting a chance to find and reach any survivors if the plane had crashed.

Hundreds of Afghan troops were sent to Khaki Jabar, a district with few roads and steep ridges rising to more than 4 000m. A photographer saw two helicopters flying over the area and a column of German armoured vehicles moving through knee-deep snow along a mountain road.

Afghan Defence Ministry spokesperson General Mohammed Zahir Azimi said the Afghan troops had also given up for the night, but wouldn't rule out a happy ending. "They couldn't find a single piece," he said. "Tomorrow we will search a wider area."

Kam Air said the Boeing was carrying 96 passengers and a crew of six Russians and two Afghans.

Transport Minister Enayatullah Qasemi said the pilot last contacted the Kabul control tower at about 3pm on Thursday to ask for a weather update and was cleared for landing by Bagram Air Base. Moments later it disappeared from radar screens.

- AP