Kam Air Flight RQ904 from Herat to Kabul, Afghanistan ran out of fuel and crashed on Thursday, February 3, 2005 after being turned away by US troops occupying the Bagram Airbase. Flight 904 could not land at Kabul due to bad weather and diverted to Bagram as a final choice. Bagram air traffic control refused permission to land even after being informed that Flight 904 had only 15 minutes of fuel remaining. This claim of landing clearance being denied by US air traffic control at Bagram was first published in the Pakistani print and internet news and in an international shortwave broadcast interview on Radio Tehran.
Flight 904, a Boeing 737-200 carrying 104 passengers and crew, crashed in the Shaperi Ghar area of the Sapari Mountains about 19 miles south east of Kabul amid ice and snow shortly after 4:00 pm Thursday afternoon killing all on board. The search was hindered by the weather and the ruggedness of the terrain. Saturday the wreckage was located near a bunker remaining from the Afghan civil war. Adding to the hazard was that the area remained mined. The wreckage was finally found Saturday at 1:37 pm at 11,000 ft. Recovery of bodies from the crash site began on Monday Feb 14, eleven days after the crash.
The flight data recorder had been found and turned over to US National Transportation Safety Board analysis. The cockpit voice recorder which would contain the request and denial to land at Bagram has not been reported found.
Six Americans died along with 90 other passengers and 8 crew. Most of the passengers were Afgan. There were also 9 Turks, 3 Italians and 1 Iranian passengers. The crew was mostly Russians 1 Canadian and 2 Afghans. The pilot was Russian and the Co-Pilot a Canadian imigree from Russia.
Three health workers from the US are confirmed to have died in the Flight 904 Crash. Amy Lynn Niebling was raised in Omaha, Neb. graduated from the University of Denver in 2004 married and lived in Somerville, Mass. Carmen Urdaneta from Boston and Cristi Gadue of Vermont.
These three health workers were working to improve health care in Afganistan for Management Sciences for Health, a firm based in Cambridge, Mass
Kam Air is a private airline established in 2003 operating a fleet of leased Boeing and Antonov aircraft on both domestic and international routes. Flight 904 was a 23 year old Boeing 737-200 leased by Kam Air from Phoenix Aviation, a firm based at Sharjar,United Arab Emirates.
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