Russian charter flight with 6 people disappears over Afghanistan; crash reported

KABUL (Reuters) - Russian aviation authorities said on Sunday a Russian-registered plane with six people thought to be on board disappeared from radar screens over Afghanistan the previous night, after local Afghan police said they had received reports of a crash.

Russian aviation authorities said in a statement the plane was a charter ambulance flight traveling from India, via Uzbekistan to Moscow on a French-made Dassault Aviation Falcon 10 jet manufactured in 1978.

Police in northern Afghanistan received reports of a plane crash in Badakhshan province, a provincial police spokesperson said on Sunday.

Zabihullah Amiri, a spokesperson for Badakhshan's provincial government, told Reuters a team had been sent to the location of the crash, but it was a remote area more than 200 km (124 miles) from the provincial capital Fayzabad and would take the team 12 hours to reach.

The Afghan provincial police spokesperson said in a statement the crash had taken place overnight in a remote, mountainous region of Badakhshan in Afghanistan's far north.

He said there were no confirmed details on the type of plane, cause of the crash or casualties.

India's civil aviation authority said that the plane crash was not a scheduled commercial flight or an Indian chartered aircraft and that "more details are awaited."

Aircraft manufacturer Dassault did not respond immediately to a request for comment outside normal business hours.

(Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru, Charlotte Greenfield in Islamabad, Mohammad Yunus Yawar in Kabul and Aditi Shah in Delhi; Editing by Jamie Freed)