Surviving pilot rejects reports plane that crashed in Badakhshan was carrying $1.2 million

One of the survivors of an airplane that crash-landed in Afghanistan, pilot Arkady Grachev, has denied reports that the plane allegedly was carrying $1.2 million.

“You should remember the mentality of the Afghan people. They came to help us and they had to be thanked somehow; we gave them some cash,” Grachev told journalists in Moscow, TASS news agency reported.

Pilot Dmitry Belyakov, has blamed the incident on a technical malfunction that led to a fuel problem.

“The cause of the crash was a technical malfunction. In all likelihood, a problem with fuel. The presence of ice, which disrupted the flow from the main tanks to the feeder tanks,” he said.

Belyakov noted that the pilots had been taking measures to prepare the aircraft to make an emergency landing up until the very last minutes before being forced to crash-land.

“We were busy with emergency landing procedures; we determined the most favorable place where it could be landed, and we did find such a place, a flat mountain slope,” he added.

The four people who survived the plane crash in Afghanistan – two pilots and two medics – were flown to Moscow on Friday. 

Six people were on board the aircraft en route from Thailand to Moscow. The incident happened in Afghanistan’s northern Badakhshan province.