AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Senior Afghan officials say a plane has crashed in eastern Ghazni province, but details remained unclear as authorities sought to locate the aircraft's wreckage in the mountainous province.
Three government officials said the plane was operated by Afghanistan's state-owned airline Ariana Afghan Airlines, but its acting CEO Mirwais Mirzakwal denied those reports on Monday.
"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," the airline's acting CEO Mirwais Mirzakwal told Reuters news agency.
A senior official in Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's office in Kabul said that a plane had crashed near Ghazni province and authorities were still seeking details.
Before Mirzakwal's denial, Arif Noori, a spokesman for the provincial governor's office in Ghazni city, had said: "A Boeing plane belonging to the Ariana Afghan Airlines, has crashed in the Sado Khel area of Deh Yak district of Ghazni province around 1:10 pm local time (0840 GMT)."
Official sources in the province said the plane was en route to Ghazni from Herat when it crashed.
The plane crashed in a territory under Taliban control, Tolo news reported.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said they were investigating the crash claims but were unable to comment further.
Al Jazeera's Zein Basravi, reporting from the capital, Kabul, said: "The spokesman for the governor of Ghazni province has said that according to his people on the ground, this is was not an Afghan aircraft, so that would suggest that this is not an Ariana Airlines aircraft as previously was suspected by many people."
"We know that Afghan security forces are at the scene and reports we are hearing from those eyewitnesses is that all passengers on board are deceased," he added.
"There are no survivors and only the pilots' bodies are recognisable at this stage and those Afghan soldiers are saying as far as they are concerned from the wreckage and the bodies of the pilots that they do not appear to be Afghan."
"All the flights of Ariana Afghan Airlines have been completed normally," a statement on the carrier's verified Facebook page read.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Afghanistan also denied reports that the plane was a commercial flight.
"According to our information from the Control Tower and Traffic Regulatory Authority, no commercial airline crash has been recorded. And Ariana Afghan Airlines have reassured us that all their planes are accounted for," said the organisation.
The mountainous Ghazni province sits in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains and is bitterly cold in winter.
The last major commercial air crash in Afghanistan occurred in 2005 when a Kam Air flight from western Herat to the capital Kabul crashed into the mountains as it tried to land in snowy weather.
