Russian air ambulance with six on board crashes in Afghanistan

KABUL/MOSCOW: A Russian-registered charter plane with six people on board disappeared from radar screens over Afghanistan a day earlier, Russian aviation authorities said on Sunday, after Afghan police said they had received reports of a crash.

The plane was a charter ambulance flight travelling from Thailand's Utapao Airport in Pattaya to Moscow via India and Uzbekistan on a French-made Dassault Aviation Falcon 10 jet manufactured in 1978, Russian aviation authorities said in a statement.

About 25 minutes before the plane vanished from radar screens, the pilot warned that fuel was running low and that the plane would try to land at an airport in Tajikistan, Russian news outlet SHOT reported, citing an unnamed source.


The pilot then reported that one engine had stopped, and then that the second one had also stopped, SHOT reported. Reuters could not immediately confirm the details shared by SHOT.

"On board was a bedridden patient in serious condition, a Russian citizen, who was transported from one of the hospitals in Pattaya to Russia," the RIA news agency reported, citing a source at Thailand's Utapao International Airport. "She was accompanied by her husband, a private entrepreneur, also a Russian citizen, who paid for the flight."