The charred wreckage of a private plane that crashed in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq with five Germans on board was discovered Sunday 35 kilometres north of Sulaymanyah, according to the director of that city's airport, DPA reported. Six bodies discovered in the wreckage were taken to a hospital in Sulaymanyah for identification, said airport director Qamran Ahmed. Although a fire had occurred in the aircraft, it wasn't clear whether this caused the crash or happened after the accident. A spokesperson for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) confirmed that the aircraft was found in Arbad, 35 kilometres north of Sulaymanyah. The Cessna C501 had left Munich Thursday, according to police headquarters in Bavaria, with six people on board. The three German businessmen were employees of Bavarian construction company Hasit Building Materials and were travelling with two German pilots and a Kurdish translator. The aircraft flew via Hungary to Baku in Azerbaijan on Thursday, before taking off again for the city of Kirkuk in the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. Police in Bavaria said Friday that there had been no trace of the aircraft since Thursday. Radio contact with the small aircraft broke off near the town of Halabja in the north-east of the country, the authorities said.
