“On the evening of Saturday, January 20, while in the airspace of Afghanistan (…), the Falcon 10 aircraft registered in the State Register of Civil Aircraft of the Russian Federation stopped communicating and disappeared from the radar screen,” Russian civil aviation policeman Rosavietsia explained in a statement. “According to preliminary information, six people were on board the plane: four crew members and two passengers,” the source said.
Russia’s federal civil aviation agency, Rosavietsia, said four people were found alive, while two others went missing on Sunday. “The local ground search and rescue service found the Falcon 10 plane,” Rosavietsia indicated in the first final press release.
“Of the six people on board, four are estimated to be alive (suffering from various injuries), and the fate of two people is being verified,” Rosavietsia continued. Afghan authorities have also confirmed the toll on their side.
“The pilot has been found,” we read in a press release from the Afghan Ministry of Transport and Aviation on X (formerly Twitter). “According to the pilot, there are four people alive on board including him. The search team (…) is looking for other people,” he continued.
According to Rosavietsia, the Falcon 10 in question, a business jet, “was built in 1978 by the French company Dassault Aviation. The plane is owned by Athletic Group LLC and an individual.”
According to the Russian press agency RIA Novosti, the plane was carrying a private medical flight between Gaya (India) – Tashkent (Uzbekistan) – Zhukovsky (Russia), carrying a “bedridden patient in serious condition” and her husband. The flight was paid for, the source said, adding that the two people are Russian nationals.
Russian investigators announced the launch of a “violation of safety regulations (…) negligence leading to the death of two or more people”.
According to Belarusian television channel Belsat, the occupants of the plane are Anna and Anatoly Yevsiukov, who chartered the private plane after the woman fell ill while on vacation in Thailand.
For his part, Zabihullah Amiri, an official in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province, explained to AFP that he was “informed by villagers” that a plane had crashed in the region, which borders Tajikistan, China and Pakistan.
The accident occurred in a mountainous area, which is difficult to access, crossed by the Hindu Couch massif of the province, with peaks exceeding 7,000 meters. The accident site is “eight hours away” from the provincial capital Faizabad, Amiri said.
