KABUL — An Azerbaijani cargo plane crashed in the mountains on its way to a U.S.-NATO air base in Afghanistan late Tuesday, officials said, and all nine crew members on board are believed to have been killed.
No Americans were on the flight, officials said.
The Russian-made Ilyushin-76 was en route from Baku to Bagram air base, the hub of U.S. military and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Officials said it was flying at about 12,500 feet when it went down in a mountainous part of the Ghorband valley, west of the base and north of Kabul.
Taliban insurgents, who have recently become active in Ghorband, claimed that the plane was shot down. But Basir Salangi, governor of the province that includes Ghorband, said the plane was flying well above the range of Taliban weapons.
Quoting officials sent to the site of the crash, Salangi said the plane was completely destroyed and all those on board had died.
Maj. Tim James, a spokesman for the NATO coalition in Afghanistan, said there is “absolutely no indication that there was any insurgent activity” in the area at the time of the crash.
Maj. James Lowe, a spokesman for the U.S. Transportation Command, said the aircraft was carrying about 4,000 pounds of heavy equipment, on four pallets.
“The plane belonged to Azerbaijan and was chartered by the coalition and was flying supplies for them to Bagram,” said Yaqoub Rassouli, the head of Kabul Airport.
Rassouli said he was waiting to hear from Baku about the nationalities of those on board.
“No one at this stage can confirm or deny anything,” Rassouli said, adding that an investigation was underway.
The United States and NATO increasingly are relying on air transport to ferry supplies into Afghanistan, as tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan threaten land routes from that country.
But air travel carries its own risks. Last year, dozens of people — including a group of foreigners — were killed when a fixed-wing Afghan plane crashed in a mountainous area close to the site of Tuesday’s crash. In October, a civilian cargo transport plane crashed into mountains in the outskirts of Kabul, killing all eight foreigners on board.
