dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

An Air Force plane with “less than five onboard” crashed in eastern Afghanistan Monday, a U.S. military official told Fox News.

It was not immediately clear if there were any survivors and officials said there are no indications that the plane – an E-11A – was shot down. The plane is the military version of the civilian Bombardier Global Express business jet.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told The Associated Press that it crashed in the Ghazni province, which sits in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains.

Pictures on social media purportedly from the crash site showed an aircraft bearing U.S. Air Force markings similar to other E-11A surveillance aircraft photographed by aviation enthusiasts, according to the AP.

Local Afghan officials had said earlier on Monday that a passenger plane from Afghanistan's Ariana Airlines had crashed in a Taliban-held area of the province. However, Ariana Airlines told the AP that none of its planes had crashed in Afghanistan.

The last major commercial air crash in Afghanistan occurred in 2005, when a Kam Air flight from the western city of Herat to Kabul crashed into the mountains as it tried to land in snowy weather.

The war, however, has seen a number of deadly crashes of military aircraft. In 2013, an American Boeing 747 cargo jet crashed shortly after takeoff from Bagram airbase north of Kabul. All seven crew members were killed.

A National Transportation Safety Board investigation of that incident found that large military vehicles were inadequately secured and had shifted during the jet’s flight, causing damage to the control systems that "rendered the airplane uncontrollable."