Afghan Plane Goes Missing

04/02/2005| IslamWeb

An Afghan passenger plane with 104 people on board is missing after being turned away from Kabul airport because of heavy snow, an airline official has said.

The Boeing 737 belonging to private airline Kam Air was on a flight from the western city of Herat to the capital on Thursday, said Atilla Kamgar, the airline's financial controller. 

He said the plane contacted Peshawar, Pakistan, airport about an hour after it was turned away from Kabul at about 4pm (1130 GMT) because of heavy snow that had closed the airport. 

"It was given clearance to land, but it never arrived," Kamgar said. "Lahore airport earlier reported to us that it had landed in Peshawar, then when we contacted Peshawar they told us it had not landed." 

No contact made

But Pakistani aviation officials said the plane never made contact with Peshawar.

Jehangir Khan, operations director of Pakistan's Civil Aviation Authority, said Afghan authorities contacted Pakistan at about 4.50pm regarding the missing aircraft, but it had not entered Pakistani air space. 

"I can confirm that no request was ever made by any captain of any Afghan aircraft to land at any airport in Pakistan," he said. "No Afghan aircraft has entered our airspace. We have also checked with defence authorities and all said no plane entered." 

A spokesman for the US military in Afghanistan said the plane had been reported missing to them. It had not landed at any US-led coalition airfields in Afghanistan. 

An air traffic controller in Peshawar said he was not authorised to speak to the media, while a controller in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore said he had heard nothing. 

Previous accidents

Kam Air opened as Afghanistan's only private airline in November 2003. It flies leased aircraft between Kabul and Dubai and Istanbul and operates several domestic routes. 

In September, an Antonov-24 operated by the airline skidded off the runway, apparently after engine trouble, while landing at Kabul airport, slightly injuring some of the 27 passengers aboard. 

In early 1998, a transport plane operated by state-run Ariana Afghan Airlines crashed in the mountains near the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, killing 51 people.

That plane apparently failed to land inside Afghanistan because of bad weather. 

And in March that year, 45 people were killed when another Ariana plane slammed into a mountain peak near Kabul.

PHOTO CAPTION

An Afghan woman walks past the snow-covered Darul Aman's Palace in Kabul. (AFP)