Eight dead as cargo plane crashes near Kabul

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Eight dead as cargo plane crashes near Kabul

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12 October,2010 11:51 pm

A cargo plane operating on behalf of a US-based company crashed into mountains and burst into flames near the Afghan capital on Tuesday, killing all eight crew on board, officials said. The plane had taken off from Bagram, one of the largest US-run military bases in Afghanistan, 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of Kabul. Local aviation officials said the plane was carrying goods on behalf of the US-led NATO force in Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), but an ISAF spokesman said only that he was checking those reports. Officials gave no immediate word on the cause of the crash, which happened after dark. Five months ago an Afghan passenger jet crashed into treacherous mountains near Kabul during bad weather. A C-130 cargo plane operated by National Air Cargo was on its way from Bagram to Kabul, Mohammad Yaqoob Rasouli, the director of Kabul International Airport, told. It disappeared from radar screens at 19:25 (1455 GMT) six miles on the radar screen northeast of Kabul airport, Rasouli told. The tower saw a fire in the same location and we also got telephone confirmation from the area of a crash, he said, adding The plane had eight crew members: six Filipinos, one Indian and one Kenyan. Search operations have already begun. A spokesman for Afghanistan's ministry of transport and civil aviation told that all crew on board perished. They are all dead, said the spokesman, Nangyalai Qalatwal.