Indian authorities definitively stated on Sunday that no Indian aircraft was involved in the crash of a private jet in a remote part of Afghanistan the previous evening.
The clarification comes after initial reports suggested an Indian carrier’s plane had gone down in the mountainous Zebak district of Badakhshan province. However, senior Indian officials confirmed the downed jet was actually a Moroccan-registered Dassault Falcon 10 operating an air ambulance flight.
Per Afghanistan’s civil aviation agency, the aircraft was transporting six people on a charter flight from Gaya, India to Tashkent, Uzbekistan en route to Moscow when it disappeared from radar.
Rescue crews have been dispatched to the rugged terrain of the crash site as the cause remains under investigation. While the accident renewed concerns about aviation safety oversight in Afghanistan, India emphasized no Indian plane or operator was linked to the tragedy.
Officials continue monitoring the situation even as India disputes early accounts of its possible connection to the fatal jet incident.