KARACHI - A chartered plane carrying Afghan Mines and Industries Minister Juma Mohammad Mohammadi and seven others crashed into the Arabian Sea off Pakistan's southern coast Monday, apparently killing all aboard, AFP reported.

Afghanistan's presidential palace confirmed that Mohammadi, 62, and at least three other Afghan officials were killed in the crash, the second fatal crash of a plane carrying dignitaries in Pakistan in four days.

The wreckage of the Cessna 402-B plane, which took off from this southern port city in clear weather just after 8:00 A.M. (0300 GMT), was found in the ocean 56 kilometers (30 nautical miles) west of the city, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said.

Mohammadi and his colleagues were traveling to the southwest Province of Baluchistan to view copper, silver and gold mines run by a Chinese firm called Metallurgic Construction Company Resource Development Ltd. The firm's Ceo Sun Chang Sheng was also on board.

The company had invited the Afghan delegation to inspect the mines near resource-rich Baluchistan's Juzzak district and had hired the plane from Star Air Aviation.

The plane disappeared from air traffic controllers' radar just after 9:00 A.M. (0400 GMT), said an employee of Star Air Aviation, which chartered the craft from the private Edhi Welfare Trust. Five bodies have been recovered and a sixth body was "in the process" of being recovered, Pakistan Foreign Ministry Spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan said, calling the crash "an unfortunate accident."

The bodies were brought to the Pakistan Navy's Shiffah Hospital in Karachi.

Rescuers were searching for two other bodies, navy spokesman Roshan Khiyal said. The civil aviation authority opened a probe of the crash.