A passenger plane has crashed in Afghanistan’s central Ghazni province, a senior Afghan official told NBC News.
The plane reportedly crashed in territory under Taliban control but the number of casualties and exact details are unclear.
Arif Noori, a spokesman for the governor’s office in Ghazni, said fire brigades, security officials and rescue teams were at the scene of the crash. Noori added that there we approximately 100 bodies at the scene.
It was initially reported to be a plane from the state-owned Ariana Afghan Airlines. However, the airline’s acting CEO Mirwais Mirzakwal has since denied that one of its planes had crashed.
“There has been an airline crash but it does not belong to Ariana because the two flights managed by Ariana today from Herat to Kabul and Herat to Delhi are safe,” Mirzakwal told Reuters.
A Facebook account, purportedly belonging to the airline, also said that if any crash did happen, it didn’t involve one of its planes.
A spokesperson for Ariana Afghan Airlines wasn’t immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
The spokesman for the provincial governor said the plane went down around 1:10 p.m. local time in the Deh Yak district, according to The Associated Press. Two provincial council members also confirmed the crash, according to AP.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said the group was checking on news of a plane crash, Reuters also reported.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) currently has a notification which cites Afghanistan airspace warnings from a number of countries. The U.K. Aeronautical Information Service suggests a potential risk to aircraft flying below 25,000 feet due to “anti aviation weaponry.”
United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) advises “extreme caution” when flying into Afghan airspace, adding that ground time in the country should be minimized.
—Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this article.
