A Red Cross MI-8 helicopter has gone missing with seven crew members after taking off from an airport in Pakistan's Northwestern Frontier Province (NWFP) on Friday noon, an organization spokesperson said Sunday. She said after completing three-month relief mission in Pakistan's quake-hit regions, the helicopter was returning Turkmenistan when it lost contact with the air control tower in Peshawar, capital of NWFP, near Afghan border on Friday. "It gave the last message to the air control that it was about to leave Pakistani airspace," Layla Berlemont, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "We have no information what happened to helicopter and we are deeply concerned about its fate," she said adding that there was no ICRC official on board. Berlemont said the Afghan and the U.S.-led coalition forces had launched searches in Afghanistan's border areas on Saturday but were still clueless. She said Pakistan forces had also began search operation in their side of border. The helicopter had been chartered by the ICRC from the Turkmenistan airline for its relief operation in northern Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, where an October 8 earthquake killed some 75,000 people and displaced 3.5 million others.
