A plane from a private Afghan company has gone missing with 96 passengers on board while on a domestic flight, an official from the airline said.  

The Kam Air plane was on a flight from the western city of Herat to Kabul on Thursday afternoon when it requested to land in Pakistan before going missing, said Attila Kamgar, financial controller of the Afghan airline.

"Yes the plane went missing. There were 96 passengers on board. The plane was going from Herat to Kabul. It was supposed to land at 3:30 PM (1000 GMT)," said Kamgar, who is also the brother of the airline's owner.

"At 3:50 PM the plane requested to talk with the (control) tower. Then there was no more information. After one hour the plane requested to land in Peshawar (in Pakistan) and Peshawar said it did not land."

Kamgar said he was not sure about the nationalities of the passengers on board the aircraft. There was no information given on the number of flight crew on board.

The company had contacted the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) but the NATO-led peacekeeping force said it had no word of a missing aircraft.

The Afghan Civil Aviation Information Service said: "We cannot confirm or deny that the Kam Air flight has gone missing."

(Chinadaily.com.cn via agencies, February 4, 2005)