Russian Plane Crashes in Northeastern Afghanistan Mountains

[iNews24, Reporter Shin Soo-jung] A private jet carrying six people to Russia crashed in a remote area of northeastern Afghanistan, with reportedly four of the passengers alive.

According to Reuters, AP, and Sputnik News on the 21st (local time), Zabihullah Amiri, a spokesperson for the Badakhshan provincial government of Afghanistan, announced that a rescue team was dispatched after an aircraft crashed in a mountainous area near Zebak village the previous night. Zebak is a mountainous region approximately 155 miles northeast of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and is home to only a few thousand people.

Earlier, Russian aviation authorities confirmed that a Falcon 10B aircraft disappeared from radar while over Badakhshan province the previous evening and announced that the aircraft had four crew members and two Russian passengers, a total of six people on board.

They also added that the plane was an ambulance charter that had departed from Thailand, refueled at Gaya Airport in Bihar, India, and was heading to Zhukovsky International Airport in Moscow. It was reported to have been in contact with the authorities in Afghanistan and neighboring Tajikistan.

Subsequently, the Afghan Taliban government announced that their national airline’s search team found the plane wreckage and that four out of the six passengers had survived.

The Taliban’s Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation announced through a statement that “four people, including the plane’s pilot, are alive. The search for the remaining two missing persons is ongoing.”

Based on this information, Russian aviation authorities also told the national media that “there is a possibility that four passengers survived.”

A private jet carrying six people to Russia crashed in a remote area of northeastern Afghanistan, with reportedly four of the passengers alive. This image is unrelated to the article. [Photo=Pixabay]

Engine failure is being mentioned as the cause of the crash. Abdul Wahid Rian, a spokesperson for the Afghan Taliban’s Ministry of Public Information and Culture, briefly stated that the cause of the crash was an “engine problem.”

Russia’s TASS News Agency also quoted a national official saying that the accident appears to have been caused by a technical defect in both engines in the aircraft.

Russian authorities reported that the crashed Falcon 10B aircraft was manufactured in 1978 and was a private jet owned by a company and an individual called “Athletic Group.”

Meanwhile, since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021, international airlines have been wary of using Afghan airspace, but the airspace over Zebak and the surrounding area of Badakhshan province has been used as a brief passage route over a few minutes.

By. Soo jung Shin