A passenger plane carrying 44 passengers and crew crashed in a remote area of Afghanistan today.
Rescuers were trying to reach the crash site near the Salang Pass, a major route through the inaccessible Hindu Kush mountains that connect the capital Kabul to the north. The crash site is some 4,000 metres above sea level.
The plane was operated by Pamir Airways, a private Afghan airline making a flight from the northern city of Kunduz to Kabul.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known, but it came amid cloudy and rainy weather in Kabul and its surrounding areas.
The missing include three Britons and a German, according to Pamir.
Nato sent a search plane to the last known position of the crash plane, but poor weather hampered its efforts.
A spokesman said the US aircraft got within 6km of the crash site, but had to abort due to bad weather. "All eyes were searching for the plane but the fog was so bad you couldn't tell where the mountain began and the fog ended," he said.
Other helicopters were on standby at Bagram Air Field and the Kabul airport to assist in any rescue effort
Pamir Airways is one of three major private Afghan airlines that operates mostly domestic routes across Afghanistan.
Aircraft belonging to the military and civilian contractors crash fairly regularly in Afghanistan, although crashes involving planes from commercial carriers are less common.