2024 Badakhshan Dassault Falcon 10 crash

On 21 January 2024, a plane carrying six people crashed in the Kuf Ab District of Afghanistan's Badakhshan Province killing two of its occupants; there were four survivors. The flight operated by a Dassault Falcon 10 was bound for Moscow from Thailand with a refueling stop in India.

Background
International flights have generally bypassed Afghan airspace since the Taliban takeover in 2021, with those passing through usually flying for a few minutes over the narrow Wakhan Corridor in the northeast of the country. The area in which the plane crashed is located at the base of the panhandle, and is traversed, along with the rest of Badakhshan Province, by the Hindu Kush mountains.

Aircraft and occupants
Early reports suggested that the flight originated from India and that there was a significant number of Indian passengers on board, and that it was an Indian commercial plane bound for Moscow. However, authorities from India said none of the country's major airlines flew the route. The Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation said it was a Moroccan-registered Dassault Falcon 10 that had refueled at Gaya International Airport. However, the business it was associated with, a medical evacuation company, was allegedly no longer in business.

Russian civil aviation authorities said the aircraft was Russian-registered and operating as a charter ambulance flight, adding that it originated from U-Tapao International Airport in Thailand and was heading for Zhukovsky International Airport in Moscow, with scheduled stops in Gaya, India and Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Russian officials said that the aircraft was manufactured in 1978 and was owned by Athletic Group LLC and a private individual.

The Russian embassy in Thailand said that the aircraft was on a private medical evacuation to Moscow. Allegedly on board were a married Russian couple from Volgodonsk, consisting of a woman who was described as in "serious condition" and had been hospitalized in Pattaya, and her husband, an entrepreneur who had paid for the flight. The four-person crew were also reported to be Russian nationals.

The Afghan Ministry of Transport and Aviation said the flight had not been planned to fly over Afghan airspace and attributed its entry to "technical issues". A spokesman for the Afghan Information and Culture Ministry described the aircraft as Moroccan-registered.

Crash
Authorities said that the crash occurred at around 7:00 PM AFT on 20 January in a mountainous region of Kuf Ab District of Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan, about 200 kilometers from the provincial capital Fayzabad. According to information from Flightradar24, the aircraft was last reported at around 1:30 PM GMT (6:00 PM AFT) just south of Peshawar, Pakistan. Russian media reported that prior to the crash, the pilot made a call warning that the aircraft was running low on fuel and made plans to land in Tajikistan before both engines failed. The aircraft vanished from radar screens 25 minutes after the call.

Rescue efforts
News of the crash broke out the following morning after locals reported the incident to provincial officials of Badakhshan. The Taliban's chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said that rescue teams from the Afghan Air Force were searching the area. One of the survivors, nurse Igor Syvorotkin, who suffered minor injuries in the accident, managed to reach the nearest village of Pidew where he gestured residents for help.

Taliban officials later said that they had reached the crash site near Aruz Koh mountain in Kuf Ab District on 21 January, saying that four people on board the plane, including the pilot, had been rescued, while the remaining two died. The survivors and bodies of the fatalities were initially airlifted to the provincial capital Fayzabad and then flown to Kabul. Mujahid said that the survivors were in "good health".

Investigation
The Afghan Ministry of Transport and Aviation announced that its technical team had launched an investigation into the accident, which it attributed to technical issues. A Taliban spokesperson attributed the crash to an "engine problem".

The Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal investigation on charges relating to potential violations of air safety rules or negligence as part of its protocol regarding such incidents. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that officials of the Russian embassy in Kabul were working with Afghan officials over the incident.