AFP: Turkish rescue teams were Monday looking for traces of a private aircraft which went missing while flying from northeastern Turkey to neighbouring Iran, officials said. ANKARA, May 14, 2007 (AFP) – Turkish rescue teams were Monday looking for traces of a private aircraft which went missing while flying from northeastern Turkey to neighbouring Iran, officials said.
The British-registered Sky Arrow 650T light aircraft took off from the Black Sea city of Trabzon Sunday with a British pilot and a Pakistani national on board, the Turkish transport ministry said in a statement.
A land and air-borne rescue operation was launched after the aircraft failed to land in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz as intended.
The operation focussed on a mountainous region southeast of Trabzon from where the aircraft last sent a signal, the statement said.
Trabzon Governor Nuri Okutan told the Anatolia news agency that rescue teams were looking for the plane in ten different spots, but added that heavy fog at high altitudes slowed down their efforts.
A spokeswoman for the governor’s office said earlier that officials were also considering the possibility that the aircraft might have landed somewhere else than Tabriz.
The transport ministry said the plane had set out from capital Ankara Thursday and landed at Trabzon for refuelling. It was forced to wait until Sunday to resume its flight due to adverse weather conditions.
