Troops Search for Pakistani Plane
More than 700 troops began a ground search Thursday in the Himalayas for a Pakistani airliner that disappeared last week with 54 people aboard, aviation officials said.
A spokesman for the state-run Pakistan International Airlines said the ground operation was launched after aerial searches failed to locate the PIA Fokker-27, which disappeared Aug. 25 after taking off from Gilgit for a 190-mile flight to Islamabad.
More than 700 troops and mountaineers familiar with the region searched areas around 26,660-foot Nanga Parbat peak, the world’s 9th-tallest mountain, where two British climbers say they saw a low-flying plane around the time of the Fokker’s disappearance.
The aerial search was extended to include the area around the town of Chitral, 180 miles east of Gilgit near the Afghan border, where a villager reported seeing a plane on the morning of Aug. 25.
Among the 49 passengers were two Americans, Paul McGorrian, 27, a free-lance journalist from New York, and Vida Katarina Sidrys, a high school teacher from Santa Monica, Calif.
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