Afghanistan Plane Crash: Aircraft Was Air Ambulance Flying From Thailand to Moscow

New Delhi, January 21: Confirming the plane crash in Afghanistan's Badakhshan province in the early morning hours on Sunday, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said the aircraft was an air ambulance flying from Thailand to Moscow. The Civil Aviation Ministry stated further that the crashed aircraft was a DF-10 (Dassault Falcon). It was a small aircraft registered in Morocco.

"The crashed aircraft is a DF-10 (Dassault Falcon) small aircraft registered in Morocco. It is not an aircraft of Indian carriers," the Ministry of Civil Aviation noted in a report of aircraft crashed in Afghanistan. The Morocco-registered plane refuelled at Gaya airport in Bihar, the Union ministry stated.

"The aircraft was an air ambulance, was flying from Thailand to Moscow, and did refuelling at Gaya Airport," the Ministry of Civil Aviation added. The DF-10 aircraft, registered in Morocco, crashed in the mountains of Topkhana along the districts of Kuran-Munjan and Zibak of the Badakhshan province today.

Afghanistan-based news portal TOLOnews claimed earlier that the ill-fated aircraft was an Indian passenger flight. However, an official from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the top regulator for flight services in the country, confirmed that it was not an Indian plane.

"The plane that crashed in the mountains of Topkhana, alongside the districts of Kuran-Munjan and Zibak in Badakhshan province, was a Moroccan-registered DF-10 aircraft," the DGCA official said. "We have got confirmation from Air Traffic Control and other aviation bodies regarding the plane that was involved in the crash. It was identified as a Moroccan-registered DF-10 aircraft," the official added.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation, too, informed that the aircraft that crashed in Afghanistan was neither an "Indian Scheduled Aircraft nor a Non-Scheduled (NSOP)/Charter aircraft". The plane, according to TOLOnews, crashed in the mountains of Topkhana, alongside the districts of Kuran-Munjan and Zibak in Badakhshan. Citing the local residents, the Afghan portal reported that the plane crashed in the early hours of Sunday.