The plane came down in Deh Yak district in Ghazni province, south-west of the capital Kabul, in an area with a strong Taliban presence.
Local officials initially said it was a passenger plane belonging to Ariana.
Passenger plane belonging to Ariana Airlines crashes and catches fire in eastern Afghan Ghazni province – officials https://t.co/4mxgKkmcDx
— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) January 27, 2020
The plane was initially reported to have belonged to Ariana Airlines but they have now denied this.
The airline issued a strong denial, saying it only had two planes in the air and that they were safe.
Mirwais Mirzekwal, chief executive of Ariana, told Reuters: “It does not belong to Ariana because the two flights managed by Ariana today from Herat to Kabul and Herat to Delhi are safe.”
Ghazni provincial governor Wahidullah Kaleemzai later told private broadcaster TOLOnews: “There is no exact information on casualties and name of the airline.”
Afghanistan’s aviation body also said that no civilian planes had crashed, and Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told the BBC that his group had not yet located the aircraft.
Ghazni police commander Ahmed Khalid Wardak told the BBC that there was no information about casualties, and that it was unclear what had caused the plane to crash. He added that the aircraft had been set on fire.
Iranian state media also published footage it claimed was of the aircraft, and speculated that it may have belonged to the US Air Force.
However, a senior defence official in Kabul confirmed that no US or Nato forces’ flights had crashed.
(Source: BBC)
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