Russian plane crashes in northeastern Afghanistan mountains

An aircraft — suspected to be a Russian chartered ambulance — is believed to have crashed in a mountainous province of northeastern Afghanistan, local authorities there said on Sunday.

After Afghani police reported a plane crash, Russian aviation authorities revealed an aircraft carrying six people had disappeared from their radar screen over Afghanistan on Saturday evening.

The flight was a charter ambulance from India via Uzbekistan to Moscow on a French-made Dassault Falcon 10 jet manufactured in 1978, they said in a statement. It had refueled in India having come from Thailand.

India's civil aviation authority clarified that the aircraft was not a scheduled commercial flight or an Indian chartered plane and that they awaited more details.

Four people reportedly survived crash

Russia's aviation watchdog, citing the Russian embassy in Afghanistan, said four of the six people on board the plane survived the crash, adding that the condition of two other passengers on board was not yet clear.

Meanwhile, Taliban officials said the four survivors were now with Taliban representatives who had reached the remote, mountainous area where the plane crashed. They also said two other passengers had died. 

The Taliban administration's top spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the plane's pilot was among the four who survived.

The aircraft is said to have crashed in the Badakhshan province which borders China, Tajikistan, and Pakistan. The province is home to part of the Hindu Kush mountain range and Afghanistan's highest peak, Mount Noshaq, at 7,492 meters (24,580 feet) high.

mk/rc (Reuters, AFP)