Pakistan Calls Off Search for Plane

The Pakistani government has ended its search for a passenger plane that disappeared over the Himalaya Mountains last month with 54 people--one of them a Santa Monica woman--on board, a State Department official said Wednesday.

In a cable sent to the State Department on Tuesday, spokeswoman Frances Jones said, Pakistani officials said they feared the twin-engine Pakistan International Airlines plane that disappeared Aug. 25. is hidden beneath mountain snows and will not be visible until the snow melts.

Santa Monica schoolteacher Vida Sidrys, flying to a vacation spot in Islamabad, Pakistan, was one of two U.S. citizens on the flight.

“They have combed the area pretty thoroughly,” Jones said, “but considering the fact that the results have been negative and there is considerable danger to the people involved, they are calling it off.

“There is every intention that, if any new leads develop, authorities will respond quickly.”

Jonas Sidrys, Vida’s brother, said friends will hold a memorial service for Vida at 10 a.m. Saturday at Marymont High School, where she taught Western civilization classes.