Nato team reach crashed Afghan airliner

Nato troops reached the wreckage of an Afghan airliner today, four days after it crashed into a snowy mountain peak, and began the gruesome task of searching for survivors among the 104 people on board.

Clear skies allowed helicopters to drop a small team of medics, mountaineers and explosives experts near the site, 20 miles east of Kabul, this morning, an alliance spokesman said. There was no immediate word on what they saw.

“The weather is much better today, which allowed them to get to the top,” Major Joseph Bowman said. “They’re looking for survivors and trying to make the site secure” for more forces to join the operation, he said.

The Boeing 737-200, flown by Kam Air, Afghanistan’s first post-Taliban private airline, vanished from radar screens on Thursday afternoon as it approached Kabul airport in a snowstorm from the western city of Heart.

Nato helicopters spotted parts of the wreckage some 11,000 feet up Chaperi Mountain on Saturday, but heavy snow and low cloud coverage had prevented alliance and Afghan forces from reaching the site by air or on the ground.

None of the 96 passengers and eight crew, including more than 20 foreigners, is believed to have survived Afghanistan’s worst air disaster.