WORLD : 54 Missing on Himalayan Flight
A Pakistani passenger plane carrying 54 people, including an American journalist, is missing over rugged Himalayan territory, aviation officials said.
The aging Fokker-27 Friendship aircraft disappeared from radar screens at 7:30 a.m. today, nine minutes after taking off from Gilgit, a tourist center in the Himalayas about 190 miles north of Islamabad, where the plane was headed.
Officials of the state-run Pakistan International Airlines said 49 passengers, including five infants, and five crew members were on the aircraft.
The officials said two foreigners were on the plane. They identified them as Paul McGorrian, an American free-lance journalist working for the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, and a woman listed only as Sibrys. Her nationality was not known.
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