A Russian private jet carrying six people is believed to have crashed in a remote area of rural Afghanistan, authorities said yesterday.
The crash happened on Saturday in a mountainous area near Zebak district in Badakhshan province, regional spokesman Zabihullah Amiri said, adding that a rescue team had been dispatched to the area.
Zebak is about 250km northeast of Kabul. It is a rural, mountainous area, home to only several thousand people.
The Badakhshan police chief’s office also confirmed the report of the crash in a statement.
In Moscow, Russian civil aviation authorities said a Dassault Falcon 10 went missing with four crew members and two passengers.
The Russian-registered aircraft “stopped communicating and disappeared from radar screens,” authorities said.
It described the flight as starting from U-Tapao International Airport in Thailand.
The plane had been operating as a charter ambulance flight on a route from Gaya, India, to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and onward to Zhukovsky International Airport in Moscow.
Russian officials said the plane was built in 1978 and belongs to Athletic Group LLC and a private individual.
The Associated Press could not immediately reach its owners.
Russian Investigative Committee later said it had opened a criminal case on charges related to potential violations of air safety rules or negligence.
Procedures call for such investigations to be opened over suspected crashes.
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also said that the Russian Embassy in Afghanistan was working with local officials on the incident.
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