Azernews.Az

BAKU – An Azerbaijani plane carrying cargo to the international coalition forces in Afghanistan crashed north of Kabul early on Wednesday, killing all nine crew members on board. The Taliban reportedly claimed responsibility for the incident.

Five citizens of Azerbaijan and four Uzbek nationals were on board the plane, which was carrying 18 tons of cargo to the city of Bagram from the Azerbaijani capital Baku. No more details on the nature of the cargo were reported.

Bagram is located around 45 km north of the Afghan capital and is home to the largest U.S. air base in the country.

Azerbaijan’s civil aviation authority said in a statement that the IL-76 plane, owned by the private Silk Way Airlines, crashed at 2.10 a.m. Baku time. According to the Afghan air traffic control service, communication with the plane was lost and it disappeared from the radars prior to beginning to land at the Bagram airport.

"Before communication was lost the crew had not reported any malfunctions or emergencies. Therefore, the plane presumably collided with an unknown object," the statement said.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has told Afghan media that the Taliban had allegedly shot down the Azerbaijani aircraft, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported.

"We shot down the Azerbaijan-owned IL-76 plane because it was carrying weapons to US servicemen based in Afghanistan," he claimed.

Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman, Maj. Tim James said the plane was not owned by NATO but was used to assist ISAF under an agreement signed.

Abdul Haleem, the district governor of Siagerd in Parwan province where the plane crashed, has dismissed the Taliban’s allegations. According to him, the plane collided with a mountain and then caught fire.

Chingiz Garibli, a representative of Azerbaijan’s embassy in Pakistan, played down the Taliban’s statement as well.

"Some experts have also cited this possibility, but this is highly unlikely, because the Taliban has very little control over that mountainous area," Garibli said.

Fragments of the plane and its black box were found later on Wednesday. The Associated Press reported that the plane had broken into ten to twenty fragments and burnt down. The police found body parts of the crash victims on-site, but the burnt remains could not be identified.

Azerbaijan’s State Civil Aviation Administration has established an ad hoc commission to investigate the plane crash. The commission members are due to leave for Afghanistan shortly to scrutinize the crash on the ground.

The IL-76 with loading capacity of 40 tons, manufactured in Russia in 2005, last underwent an inspection in June this year.