Plane Crashes With Afghan Minister Aboard, Official Says

An Afghan government minister and three of his officials were among eight people aboard a chartered Cessna aircraft that crashed soon after taking off here early today, an official of the charter firm said.

Juma Mohammad Mohammadi, the Afghan minister for petroleum and mines, was aboard the flight, along with an official of Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry and Sun Chang Feng, chief executive of MCC Resource Development Co., a Chinese pipeline firm, said the official of Star Aviation, which chartered the aircraft from a private relief agency.

“All those aboard except the pilot were foreigners,” said the official, who did not want to be identified. He gave no other details, and the information could not be independently confirmed.

There was no immediate information about survivors from the aircraft, which was en route from Karachi to Jazak near the Iranian border.

The aircraft lost contact with the Karachi airport control tower 29 minutes after takeoff, and it appeared that the crash site was 18 miles from the city, said Pervez George, of the Pakistani civil aviation authority.

The Cessna 402 aircraft was owned by a Pakistani private welfare organization, Edhi Trust, and chartered by Star Aviation, according to Abdul Sattar Edhi, head of the trust.