US leased plane crash kills five in Afghanistan

Five were killed and 10 injured when a plane leased to US anti-drugs agents crashed while landing and hit a nomad camp in southern Afghanistan yesterday, officials said.

Another people were missing after the accident, which happened when the pilot pulled up to avoid a truck that drove on to the runway in Lashkargah, the capital of Helmand Province, a coalition spokesman said.

The Russian-built Antonov 32 could not regain enough speed to stay airborne and smashed into the mud-brick homes and tents at the end of the landing strip, Canadian military spokesman Major Quentin Innis said.

Two the 16 people on board the twin-engined transport plane died, and eight others were medically evacuated by helicopter to the southern city of Kandahar, Innis said. He did not give their nationalities or identities.

Three Afghan civilians on the ground were killed and two were injured when the plane hit their houses and tents at the end of the runway, he added.

Five on the ground were still missing, he added. Local sources said it was feared they could be buried under the rubble or beneath the crashed plane itself.

"The information we have is that the plane was at its final approach, then a truck tried to cross the runway and the pilot pulled up to avoid the truck," Innis said.

Deputy police chief Mohammad Ayob Ansari earlier said that a three-year-old child had died and six Afghan civilians on the ground were injured. It was not clear how his figure tallied with the coalition's.

The aircraft was under contract to the US State Department's International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Bureau, said Lou Fintor, a spokesman for the US embassy in Kabul.

"The plane was on a routine mission carrying personnel from Kabul to Lashkargah, with a stop in Kandahar and then went on to Lashkargah." Fintor said.

Fintor an unknown number of US citizens on board sustained minor injuries.