KABUL — Searchers found no survivors Friday among 44 people on board an Afghan commercial airliner that crashed this week on a remote mountain north of the capital of Kabul, the aviation minister said.
The Antonov-24 operated by Pamir Airways disappeared Monday on a flight from Kunduz to Kabul. The wreckage was spotted Thursday by a search plane on a 13,500-foot mountain in the Shakar Darah district north of Kabul.
Aviation Minister Mohammadullah Batash told The Associated Press that ground searchers reached the site Friday but found no survivors.
Three Britons and one American were among eight foreign passengers on the plane, along with nationals from Pakistan and Australia, said chief aviation investigator Ghulam Farooq. He did not have precise numbers for Australian and Pakistani passengers.
Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency said three Tajikistan citizens working for the airline were also aboard, possibly among the crew.
Photos supplied by NATO forces show the plane broken into four pieces and strewn across a steep mountainside about 24 miles north of Kabul. Bad weather and the rugged mountain terrain hampered the search.
The cause of the crash, which occurred in heavy fog, has not been determined.
The airline denied allegations of lax safety procedures made by an American photojournalist who said she took a Pamir flight from Kunduz to Kabul on May 4.
Stephanie Sinclair said in an e-mail to AP that during the flight, the pilot allowed several passengers to enter the cockpit even though there was turbulence and bad weather.
Elsewhere, a British Marine was killed Friday by a roadside bomb in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, said the British Defense Ministry.
