Aircraft that crashed in Badakhshan province of Afghanistan not Indian, DGCA confirms

Kabul [Afghanistan], January 21 (ANI): A DF-10 aircraft, registered in Morocco, crashed in the mountains of Topkhana along the districts of Kuran-Munjan and Zibak of the Badakhshan province on Sunday morning.

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”.

It is a Moroccan-registered small aircraft, it confirmed.

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.

Further details are awaited.