Plane crashes in Afghanistan; search for survivors suspended

An Afghan passenger plane carrying at least 43 people crashed Monday in a snowstorm in the rugged Hindu Kush mountains. The search for survivors was suspended after dark but was to resume Tuesday.

Those aboard the missing plane included at least five foreigners, according to provincial officials in the northern city of Kunduz, where the flight originated.

The plane, an aging Russian-built Antonov-24 turboprop operated by private Pamir Airways, left about 8:30 a.m. for Kabul, the capital, but disappeared amid the jagged peaks of the nearly 13,000-foot-high Salang Pass. Officials said it was believed to have gone down about 60 miles north of Kabul.

Afghanistan’s several private airlines have fleets that include a number of aging Russian craft, together with some newer planes. The AN-24s used on Pamir’s flights between Kabul and Kunduz are at least 30 years old.

Zemari Bashary, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry, said Afghan authorities had sought the help of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s International Security Assistance Force to mount a search-and-rescue mission.

The Western military said in a statement that it had dispatched a fixed-wing aircraft and two helicopters to the area but had to call off the search after darkness and fog closed in.

There were conflicting reports from Afghan officials as to whether there were 43 or 44 people aboard the plane, including the crew. The British Embassy in Kabul confirmed that three British nationals were on board, the Associated Press reported.

Pamir began operations in 1995, and flies between the capital and most major Afghan cities. It also operates flights to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

A number of foreign aid agencies operate around Kunduz province, a formerly quiet corner of Afghanistan that has been increasingly beset by the insurgency. Because of the difficulty of land travel, some aid workers use Pamir, the only commercial airline to serve Kunduz.

Most of the Western forces stationed in Kunduz province are German.

Elsewhere in northern Afghanistan, officials said five Afghan workers for the United Nations were freed in a raid by Afghan troops on a Taliban compound in Baghlan province, which borders Kunduz. They had been abducted and held since April 15 by insurgents, Afghan and U.N. officials said.

Also Monday, military officials said at least three Western troops — an American and two Italians — had died in separate incidents. The U.S. service member was killed in a bombing in southern Afghanistan; the Italians died when their convoy hit a roadside bomb near the western city of Herat.

laura.king@latimes.com