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Afghan wreckage found
Six Americans were believed to have been on board, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said yesterday.
Management Sciences for Health, of Cambridge, Mass., confirmed that three of its aid workers were on the plane -- Cristin "Cristi" Gadue, 26, a native of Burlington, Vt.; Amy Lynn Niebling, 29, of Somerville, Mass.; and Carmen Urdaneta, 32, of Brookline, Mass.
Afghan police and German soldiers from the International Security and Assistance Force struggled through deep snow and came within sight of the scattered debris. They reported no sign of life beyond scavenging animals and birds and were forced back by darkness and plummeting temperatures.
"So far, we don't think there are any survivors," said Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior. "The plane is completely destroyed."
The Boeing 737-200, flown by Kam-Air, vanished from radar screens Thursday afternoon as it approached Kabul's airport in a snowstorm. The disappearance sparked a massive search operation for the 96 passengers and eight crew, of whom at least 24 were foreigners.
If all are confirmed dead, it would be the war-wracked nation's deadliest air disaster.
Officials said there was no indication that the scheduled flight, which was arriving from the western Afghan city of Herat, was hijacked or brought down by a bomb.
Afghanistan's Transport Minister Enayatullah Qasemi said yesterday the cause of the crash remains a mystery. He said U.S. Department of Transportation experts, as well as representatives of the foreign victims, would help investigate.
NATO said two of its Dutch Apache helicopters spotted the tail of the plane yesterday afternoon, lying at an altitude of 11,000 feet on the side of Chaperi Mountain about 20 miles east of Kabul. Helicopters then dropped a mountain-rescue team from Slovenia, but Qasemi said nobody reached the wreckage before nightfall.
"Tomorrow (Sunday), we plan to use helicopters to quickly start recovering the bodies," Qasemi said at a news conference yesterday. "It's not an easy job, and it will take time."
Gen. Mahbub Amiri, an Afghan police commander who got as far as the village of Chenari at the foot of the mountain, said 30 of his men advanced within a half-mile of the crash site. They saw no bodies among the pieces of plane jutting from the snow but reported that wild animals and birds had been attracted to the scene.
"No way" could anyone have survived, Amiri said.
Kam Air, which began flying in November 2003, is Afghanistan's first post-Taliban airline. Its flights -- on leased Boeing and Antonov planes -- are popular with wealthy Afghans and also are used by aid and reconstruction workers.
There have been concerns about the safety of Kam Air planes, as well as those of state-owned Ariana Airline, as they fly near the mountains that ring Kabul. The airport only recently installed an electronic landing system and still relies on the main U.S. base at Bagram, to the north, for radar.
U.N. staff are banned from using Kam Air or Ariana planes.
A spokeswoman confirmed yesterday, however, that an Italian architect working for the world body was on board. Authorities in Rome said another Italian civilian and a navy captain were among the 96 passengers.
Nine Turkish passengers, as well as the eight crew -- six Russians and two Afghans -- also are believed dead.
Qasemi said there were passengers from "at least five" foreign countries, suggesting that the expatriate total could rise.
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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