Wreckage of missing Afghan plane found

The wreckage of an Afghan passenger plane missing since Monday has been discovered in rugged mountain terrain with no sign of survivors, officials said Thursday.

There were 44 people aboard the Antonov-24 twin turboprop, including an American and three Britons. The flight, operated by private Pamir Airways, crashed on a domestic run from the northern city of Kunduz to the capital, Kabul.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, which helped with the search, said it would aid Afghan security forces in recovery efforts. The task will be difficult because of the site of the crash: jagged, snowy peaks at an altitude of 13,500 feet.

The Western military said in a statement that searchers first spotted some suspected wreckage late Wednesday. On Thursday, they were able to confirm the sighting of the tail section, on which Pamir’s blue logo was visible. Searchers on the ground had not yet reached the site.

Afghanistan’s private airlines, most of which have sprung up in the last decade, have fleets that are a mix of newer planes with older Soviet-era aircraft such as the Antonov. Maintenance standards are not always rigorously enforced, and the weather was bad on the day the plane crashed, with fog and snow squalls in the towering Hindu Kush.

The crash site is about 25 miles north of the Afghan capital in the Shakar Darah district of Kabul province, authorities said.

Afghanistan’s last major commercial plane crash was in February 2005, when a flight operated by the private carrier Kam Air went down in a snowstorm while approaching Kabul, killing 104 people aboard.

laura.king@latimes.com