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Lankan plane with 55 on-board missing after takeoff from Jaffna

A passenger plane carrying 55 people is missing after taking off from Sri Lanka's troubled Jaffna peninsula en route for the capital, aviation officials said.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said air force planes and navy gunboats had launched a search. They said those on board the Ukrainian-built Antonov-24 included two Russian pilots, five Sri Lankan crew members and 48 Sri Lankan passengers.

The government-held Jaffna, on the northern tip of the Indian Ocean island, is linked to the rest of Sri Lanka only by air and sea because of fighting between the army and secessionist ethnic Tamils along the land route. Lionair, which owns the missing plane, is one of two private companies providing civilian air service between Colombo and Jaffna. The airlines' planes normal flight path is over the sea just along the coast, past areas held by rebels.

Two weeks ago, the defence ministry said the other airline, Monara, had received an unsigned letter saying its planes would be attacked if it did not cease service. Monara stopped flights for two days, but then decided to resume.

It was not immediately clear if Lionair had received a similar threat.

Though the letter to Monara was anonymous, suspicion fell on Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam separatists, who have tried to sabotage attempts to restore normalcy in Jaffna.

Earlier this month, the rebels were blamed in a bombing that killed the new mayor of Jaffna city, the main city on the peninsula, along with its military and police commanders.

An employee of Lionair office in Colombo said the flight was missing. ''It has not landed,'' more than an hour after it was due, she said.

''We are still trying to find out what has happened to it... We don't know where it is,'' she said.

Security officials said the plane lost contact with the control tower while flying over Mannar.

According to informed Tamil sources, the LTTE accused the two airlines with transporting military personnel under the guise of civilians to the peninsula and exploiting the Tamil passengers by over-charging them.

The rebels threatened to shoot down their aircraft if they continued their flights, which operated from the Palali military base, the only airfield in the peninsula, they added.

The two airlines closed down their offices in Jaffna town following the threat, but continued to operate their flights to the peninsula, issuing tickets to the passengers in Jaffna through the army's civilian affairs office.

Diplomatic sources said following the LTTE's threat, the United Nations had advised its personnel in Sri Lanka not to take the flights.

The two airlines operated an average of four flights daily to and from Palali, the only airfield in the peninsula, with a small fleet of old AN-24 transport planes with Ukranian crew.

There is heavy demand for these flights from the people of Jaffna as this is the only mode of transport available because the sole land route to the peninsula is controlled by the LTTE.

The plane was reported missing as fierce fighting raged in the northern Killinochchi district that has left 377 rebels and at least 150 soldiers dead since Sunday.

UNI

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