19th May, 2016
A U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan says seven people were killed when a plane belonging to Silk Way Airlines of Azerbaijan crashed in the country’s south.
He said Thursday the plane had been carrying nine people when it crashed on take-off from Camp Dwyer, a military airport in Helmand province, a day earlier.
He says two survivors were flown to Kandahar Airfield for treatment. The passengers are believed to be eastern European, the spokesman says.
There was “no military involvement” in the crash, he says, adding that one of the plane’s wings clipped the runway as it was taking off at 2:30 p.m. local time.
Representative of Silk War Airlines in Afghanistan could not be immediately reached for comment.
Meanwhile, the French military says a Falcon surveillance jet monitoring the Mediterranean for migrants has been diverted to help search for an EgyptAir flight that crashed in the area Thursday.
Military spokesman Col. Gilles Jaron told The Associated Press that the jet is joining the Egypt-led search effort, and the French navy may send another plane and a ship to the zone.
He said the Falcon was on a surveillance mission as part of EU efforts to monitor migrants crossing the Mediterranean toward Europe.
The French government has offered military help to find the plane, en route from Paris to Cairo when it disappeared.