Azerbaijan plane crashes in Afghanistan, 9 on board

KABUL: An Azerbaijani cargo plane with nine crews on board crashed into treacherous mountains outside the Afghan capital overnight where concerns are growing for those on board, officials said on Wednesday.

The plane took off from Baku at 9:26 pm Tuesday (1626 GMT) with 18 tons of supplies for the US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan and crashed as it tried to land at Bagram air base to the north of Kabul, officials said.

The Azerbaijani embassy in Pakistan said the nine crews were from Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, and that the plane was operated by private Azerbaijani airline Silk Way.

There were no reports of bad weather or fighting in the area and it was not yet clear what caused the crash, with Afghan forces so far unable to reach the high-altitude crash site, the transport ministry said.

A spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force confirmed it was a military-contracted flight.

"A flight controller at Kabul airport said that they observed a flash of light approximately 25 kilometres (16 miles) from the airport, at a four-kilometre altitude," it said.

"Before the loss of contact, the crew did not report any emergency in the plane. It is assumed that the plane collided with an unknown object in the air," the statement added, in a possible reference to the mountains.

Afghan transport ministry spokesman Nangyalai Qalatwal said the plane was carrying logistics for the US-led NATO mission when it came down in the Shakar Dara Mountains, around 70 kilometres (40 miles) north of Kabul.

"The plane had nine crew members. The fate of the crew is not knows so far," he said, adding that the cause of the crash was still under investigation.

Qalatwal said Afghan forces had not yet been able to reach the wreckage, stuck in a mountainous area at an altitude of 12,500 feet (3,800 metres).

"It is a very difficult area and getting there would be pretty difficult but we are working on that," he said. Officials from the transport, interior and defence ministries would also travel to the region, he added.

ISAF spokesman Major Tim James said there were no reports of combat in the area at the time of the crash.

The US-led NATO force backs Afghan government forces in fighting a 10-year Taliban insurgency that has been concentrated in the east and south.

Azerbaijani civil aviation authorities said there were no technical problems with the plane before it took off for Afghanistan, adding that it was manufactured in 2005 and last had a full inspection in February. Aviation disasters are relatively rare in Afghanistan, where travel by road through vast and remote terrain is made more hazardous by the Taliban insurgency.

Last October, a cargo plane carrying goods on behalf of ISAF, crashed into mountains just outside the Afghan capital, killing all eight crew on board.

In May 2010, an Afghan commercial Pamir Airways passenger plane carrying 43 people also crashed in mountains outside Kabul, killing all on board.

In February 2005, a Boeing 737 operated by private company Kam Air crashed in the mountains on the outskirts of Kabul during heavy snow. There were no survivors among the 104 people on board, which included two dozen foreigners.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011