Plane disappears over Afghanistan

The Russian aviation authority confirmed in a statement that the missing plane was a chartered ambulance flight from Pattaya, Thailand to Gaya, India, via Tashkent, Uzbekistan, with its final destination being Zhukovsky International Airport in Moscow. There were four crew members and two passengers on board.

Plane disappears in the sky of Afghanistan, origin of plane unknown, picture 1 — Illustration photo: TASS

Russian authorities said the plane "stopped communicating and disappeared from radar screens," adding that the plane was owned by Athletic Group LLC and an individual. The statement said the plane was a 1978 French-made Dassault Falcon 10 jet.

Afghan regional police also received reports of a plane crash in Badakhshan province on Sunday. Zabihullah Amiri, a spokesman for the Badakhshan provincial government, said a team had been sent to the crash site, but it was a remote area more than 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the provincial capital Fayzabad and it would take the team 12 hours to reach the scene.

The crash happened overnight in a remote mountainous area of Badakhshan in Afghanistan’s far north, a provincial police spokesman said in a statement. He said no details had been confirmed about the type of plane, the cause of the crash or casualties.

Meanwhile, the Civil Aviation Authority of India stated that the aircraft involved in the incident was neither a scheduled commercial flight nor an Indian charter aircraft amid reports that it was an Indian aircraft.

Indian authorities said the crashed Falcon was an ambulance plane flying from Thailand to Moscow and stopped at Gaya airport in Bihar to refuel.

A separate statement from Abdul Wahid Rayan, spokesman for the Taliban government’s Information and Culture Department, described the plane as “belonging to a Moroccan company.” Indian civil aviation officials also described the plane as being registered in Morocco.

Huy Hoang (according to Reuters, Independent, TASS)

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