Search for missing airliner suspended

Nato and Afghan forces suspended their ground and air search as darkness fell for a jetliner carrying 104 people that disappeared from radar screens during a snowstorm near the mountain-ringed capital Kabul.

They denied suggestions from Turkish officials that parts of the wreckage had been located, and said the search would resume on Saturday.

The Kam Air Boeing 737-200 took off on Thursday from the western Afghan city of Heart bound for Kabul, but was unable to land because of bad weather.

The airline initially said the plane was diverted to neighbouring Pakistan, but officials there said it never entered their airspace.

Afghanistan’s Nato peacekeeping force sent helicopters and ground teams to scour an area of high mountains south-east of the city, where officials said the plane was last located on Thursday afternoon, but returned to base empty-handed.

Major Karen Tissot Van Patot said freezing fog had forced down even the force’s Apache helicopters, which are equipped for night flying.

“Things will shut down for the night and resume in the morning,” Patot said, discounting reports that a piece of the wreckage had been found. “We’d have heard fairly quickly if anything had turned up.”

Kam Air said there were 96 passengers and an eight strong crew – six Russians and two Afghans – on the scheduled flight, but the exact number of foreigners was unclear.

Nine Turks, three American women and an Italian army officer were on the flight.