All 48 passengers on board the Colombo-bound plane from Jaffna were Tamils, and according to reports reaching here, the Soviet-built Antonov crashed into the sea north of Mannar on the western Sri Lankan coast. There is speculation that the plane, which had a Belarus crew, was hit either by an LTTE missile or exploded due to a bomb in the plane.

Sri Lanka's navy cannot approach the area because it is a Sea Tiger stronghold. But the government has also been extremely reluctant to allow the distraught relatives of the victims to mount their own search operation. Two days after reports that life jackets and bodies had been washed ashore on Iranativu, an LTTE-controlled islet in the Mannar sea, the government on Saturday finally permitted a Catholic priest tovisit the area to confirm these reports. However, family members of the passengers have not been allowed to proceed beyond government lines in Mannar district.

There has been no official statement on the disappearance of the plane though defence sources strongly suspect the hand of the LTTE in this as in the case of so many other aircraft over the last three years. But this is the first time that a civilian plane, that too with all Tamils on board, has met with a mishap over the war zone.

Many believe that the government could have used the incident to reach out to the Tamil people by showing some concern for the grief and misery of the relatives. However, not only have they obstructed the family members from going where their own search parties cannot, there has been not a word of sympathy or condolence either from the government or from Lionair, the operating airline.

The headline in the state-run Daily News was representative of the disregard for the fate of the passengers.

``All 48 passengerswere Tamil'', it proclaimed, as if to say that it did not matter. Another newspaper dismissed the foreign crew that usually man these planes as ``mercenaries''.