Posted on 02/26/2004 1:04:38 AM PST by HAL9000
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - A plane carrying Macedonia's president to an international investment conference in Bosnia disappeared from radar, U.S. peacekeepers said Thursday.
The Macedonian government aircraft, carrying President Boris Trajkovski to the conference in the western Bosnian city of Mostar, lost contact with air-traffick controllers near the border between Bosnia and Montenegro, said Capt. Ben Thorp, a spokesman for U.S. peacekeepers in Bosnia.
Officials said it was too early to determine whether the plane had crashed.
Trajkovski's Cabinet chief, Andrej Lepavcov, told The Associated Press that the European air traffic monitoring agency informed Macedonia's government that the president's plane had "disappeared off the radar screens.""We know nothing beyond that at this point," he said.
Macedonian President's Plane Crashes in Bosnia
SKOPJE (Reuters) - A plane carrying Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski crashed in mountainous terrain in southern Bosnia Thursday, a government source in the capital Skopje said.
Asked about reports that the president's plane had crashed, he told Reuters: "Yes. Somewhere near Stolac."
Stolac lies amid mountains east of Croatia's Adriatic port of Dubrovnik. "The president was in the plane with several staff members. We have no word on survivors. A chopper is on its way," the government source added.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
Plane carrying Macedonia's president to Bosnia disappears from radar, U.S. peacekeepers say
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- A plane carrying Macedonia's president to an international investment conference in Bosnia disappeared from radar on Thursday, U.S. peacekeepers said.
The Macedonian government aircraft, carrying President Boris Trajkovski to the conference in the western Bosnian city of Mostar, lost contact with air-traffic controllers near the border between Bosnia and Montenegro, said Capt. Ben Thorp, a spokesman for U.S. peacekeepers in Bosnia.
Officials said it was too early to determine whether the plane had crashed. A search helicopter was dispatched to look for the plane.
The weather in the area was said to be poor, and it prompted Albania's prime minister, Fatos Nano, to delay his own flight to the conference, Nano spokesman Aldrin Dalipi said.
Trajkovski's Cabinet chief, Andrej Lepavcov, told The Associated Press that the European air traffic monitoring agency informed Macedonia's government that the president's plane had "disappeared off the radar screens."
"We know nothing beyond that at this point," he said.
Macedonia was to formally submit its application for eventual membership in the European Union on Thursday in Ireland, but canceled the presentation and called its delegation back from Dublin, officials said.
Trajkovski, 47, was elected in 1999 and was educated in the United States. An ordained Methodist minister who studied law, his powers are divided with those of Macedonia's prime minister.
He is widely respected in Macedonia for his neutral stance in the former Yugoslav republic, where tensions persist between Macedonians and the country's ethnic Albanian minority following a 2002 war.
Copyright 2004 Associated Press, All rights reserved
(AFP) The apparatus transporting Boris Trajkovski and his collaborators was crushed close to Stolac, in a mountainous zone of the south of Bosnia, according to a governmental source with Skopje.
Macedonian President's Plane Crashes in Bosnia
By Kole Casule
SKOPJE (Reuters) - A plane carrying Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski crashed in mountainous terrain in southern Bosnia on Thursday, a government source in the Macedonian capital Skopje said.
Asked about reports that the president's plane had crashed, he told Reuters: "Yes. Somewhere near Stolac."
Stolac lies amid mountains east of Croatia's Adriatic port of Dubrovnik. "The president was in the plane with several staff members. We have no word on survivors. A chopper is on its way," the government source added.
"There is no doubt about it. We are all in shock. We are waiting for information to see if there are any survivors," another senior government official added.
A source in the Macedonian government said Trajkovski and his entourage were flying in to the Bosnian city of Mostar on an official executive jet, headed for an economic conference there.
The Bosnian Interior Ministry said weather in the area at the time of the crash was bad.
Since his election in late 1999, the 47-year-old lawyer's term has been marked by tensions between Slavic-speaking Macedonians and the former Yugoslav republic's large ethnic Albanian minority.
He presided over a NATO-brokered peace deal in 2001 that ended months of armed clashes and prevented a full blown civil war in the mountainous state bordering Kosovo.
An English-speaker, he has been viewed in the West as a young leader with an international outlook and an ability to build contacts with foreign diplomats and politicians.
He specialized in commercial and employment law and once headed the legal department of a construction company.
In early 1999 he was appointed Macedonia's deputy foreign minister. During the Kosovo crisis that year he accused NATO of paying too little attention to the ethnic tensions brewing in Macedonia, and the influx of 300,000 ethnic Albanian refugees.
The president is married with a son and a daughter.
The mountainous Balkan region, combined with difficult winter weather conditions, can be hazardous for air travel.
In April 1996, a member of U.S. President Bill Clinton's cabinet, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, was among 35 people killed when a U.S. Air Force passenger jet crashed into a mountain near Dubrovnik while trying to land on a trade mission.
Plane carrying Macedonia's president to Bosnia crashes, official says
SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) -- A plane carrying Macedonia's president to an international investment conference in Bosnia crashed in a mountainous area on Thursday, a government official said.
The Macedonian government aircraft, carrying President Boris Trajkovski and several oter officials to the conference in the western Bosnian city of Mostar, crashed near the southern Bosnian village of Stolac shortly after 8 a.m. (0700 GMT), the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Bosnian police and international peacekeepers were searching for the plane. There was no immediate word on survivors.
Nedzad Vejzagic, a spokesman for Bosnia's Ministry, told local news agency FENA that the plane appeared to have gone down "in the area of the Hrgud hill near Stolac." Stolac is 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Sarajevo.
The weather in the area was said to be poor, and it prompted Albania's prime minister, Fatos Nano, to cancel his own flight to the conference, Nano spokesman Aldrin Dalipi said.
Macedonia was to formally submit its application for eventual membership in the European Union on Thursday in Ireland, but canceled the presentation and called its delegation back from Dublin, officials said.
Trajkovski, 47, studied theology in the United States, where he gave up communism and converted from Orthodox Christianity. He was elected president in November 1999. An ordained Methodist minister, his powers are divided with those of Macedonia's prime minister.
He is widely respected in Macedonia for his neutral stance in the former Yugoslav republic, where tensions persist between Macedonians and the country's ethnic Albanian minority following a 2002 war. He has called for a great inclusion of ethnic Albanians in state bodies and institutions.
Trajkovski is married and has a son and a daughter. Before assuming the presidency, he served as a deputy foreign minister in the center-right government of former Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski.
Copyright 2004 Associated Press, All rights reserved
APNewsAlert
SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) -- Party official says President Boris Trajkovski was killed in plane crash in Bosnia.
Copyright 2004 Associated Press, All rights reserved
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