Afghanistan plane crash: US military investigating crash in Ghazni province

A plane has crashed in eastern Afghanistan.

The aircraft came down in the country’s Ghazni province.

Local officials initially said the plane belonged to state-owned carrier Ariana Airlines, although the operator later released a statement saying it wasn’t involved in the crash.

It’s not immediately clear how many casualties there are or why the plane crashed. It is understood the plane caught fire after coming down.

Arif Noori, spokesman for the provincial governor, said the plane went down around 1.10 p.m. local time in Deh Yak district, around 80 miles southwest of the capital Kabul. He said the crash site is in territory controlled by the Taliban.

The US military said it was investigating reports of the plane crash. Images shared on social media suggest that the downed plane could have been a Bombardier E-11A aircraft, which the U.S. military uses for electronic surveillance over Afghanistan.

Just this morning, a passenger plane in Iran overshot the runway and landed on a busy city street.

Caspian Airlines flight 6936 had taken off normally from Tehran airport on an early-morning trip to the city in southwest Iran.

It is believed to have landed at 6.35am local time. Some reports say that the pilots had reported a technical failure.

Nobody was injured in the incident, although images show that the plane’s undercarriage has been ripped off.