3 from N.E. missing in Afghan crash
CAMBRIDGE -- Three New England women who went halfway around the world to help build a public health system in Afghanistan are believed to have died aboard an airplane that disappeared into the mountainous wilds of the war-torn country.
Officials presume that the plane, which was unable to land in Kabul Thursday because of snow, crashed outside the capital, killing all 104 passengers. The three communications workers -- Cristin Gadue, 26; Amy Lynn Niebling, 29, of Somerville; and Carmen Urdaneta, 32, of Brookline -- were apparently the only Americans on board.
Niebling and Urdaneta were nearing the end of a three-week trip for their Cambridge-based group, Management Sciences for Health, which is helping to build a public health system in Afghanistan. They were scheduled to return home this weekend. Gadue, who grew up in Burlington, Vt., worked for the group from Kabul.
At the nonprofit's headquarters near MIT yesterday, tearful colleagues described the women as passionate and idealistic, eager to translate their degrees in international affairs and communications into helping some of the world's most vulnerable people.
Niebling was a newlywed on her first field assignment for MSH; Urdaneta had worked to combat AIDS in Africa and to improve health services in Angola.
''To have women who are that passionate about their work is inspirational," said Stacey Irwin Downey, a senior program officer at Management Sciences for Health.
The three women are among several dozen humanitarian workers who have died in Afghanistan since aid groups went there after the US invasion in 2001. Last year, Doctors Without Borders pulled out of Afghanistan after five workers were killed.
''The last thing that I ever thought of was a plane crash," said Kate Lai, who was one of Gadue's roommates at Tufts University. ''You worry about terrorists and how an American woman would be treated over there."
The women were working on a three-year project, begun in 2003 and funded by the US Agency for International Development.
The project aimed to improve healthcare in the country, especially for young women and children.
Management Sciences for Health, which first began working in Afghanistan in 1973, estimates that one in four Afghan children die before their fifth birthday.
''Afghanistan has some of the worst health statistics in the world," said Jonathan Quick, the nonprofit's president and chief executive. ''The years of war and neglect have left devastation."
Management Sciences for Health, an international company with 1,100 employees in 20 countries, has lost workers before in its 34-year history.
Quick held a press conference in the Paul Alexander room, named for an employee who died in Haiti in the 1980s.
Other conference rooms at the company's headquarters are named for some of the eight employees who have died on the job in accidents or from diseases such as malaria that they contracted in the field, Quick said.
News of the deadly accident stunned employees yesterday. Managers gathered workers in the late morning to share information, and solemn co-workers spoke to reporters.
''I am now the only Boston-based communications person left," said Linda Suttenfield, senior communications associate.
The three women were on a Kam Air
Enayatullah Qasemi, the Afghan transport minister, said the plane was about 3 miles from the Kabul airport when it disappeared from ground control radar. NATO troops, who suspended their ground and air search last night, planned to resume looking today.
Kam Air's flights are popular with aid workers and with Afghans who can afford plane tickets to avoid long trips on poor roads.
But flying in and out of Kabul is precarious, even in good weather, since the capital is ringed with high mountains and the airport lacks the equipment to allow instrument-guided landings.
The airport has been virtually closed the past two days, as snow and low clouds enveloped the city.
Quick said he received a phone call at about 2 a.m. Friday that the plane was missing. He said his conversations with the women's families assured him that the three loved the work that had put them in harm's way.
Quick called the three humanitarian workers ''vibrant, committed young women doing great work."
Globe correspondents Victoria Burnett in Kabul, and Jack Encarnacao and Michael Levenson in Boston contributed to this report. Kathleen Burge can be reached at kburge@globe.com.
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
