KARACHI, Feb 25: The Pakistan Navy and Air Force continued their search on Tuesday for the bodies of an Afghan minister and two others in the Arabian Sea where Cessna plane crashed a day earlier. Eight people died in the crash.

Afghanistan’s minister of mines and industries, Juma Mohammad Mohammadi, and four colleagues of his were travelling aboard a chartered aircraft to Balochistan to survey a mining project, when the plane went down shortly after takeoff from the Karachi airport.

China’s Metallurgic Construction Company Resource Development Ltd had invited the Afghan team to inspect the mines near the resource-rich Balochistan’s Juzzak district, and had hired the plane from the Star Air Aviation.

Five bodies have since been recovered by Pakistani emergency crews; but the bodies of Mohammadi, an Afghan official and the mining company’s CEO, Sun Chang Sheng, are missing.

“The body of the minister has not yet been found,” Acting Afghan Consul General, Shahabuddin Saqib, told AFP.

A Pakistan Navy spokesman said the rescuers had extended their search area on Tuesday towards the shore side of southwestern Balochistan coast for the remaining three bodies.

Several naval teams are using helicopters as well as boats to find the bodies and the pieces of the wreckage with two Pakistani helicopters, one destroyer and one mine hunter, involved in the search operation.