A US Air Force battlefield communications plane crashed in Taliban-held territory in Afghanistan

Twitter/Badr-ul-huda Media

A video purporting to show a US Air Force E-11 that the Taliban say it shot down on Monday.

• An Air Force plane that crashed in Taliban-held territory in Afghanistan on Monday was an airborne communications node that supports troops on the ground, the Air Force's top officer said Monday.
• Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein confirmed that the plane was an E-11A but said the status of the crew was unknown.
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Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein says initial reports suggest a US military plane that crashed in Afghanistan was an E-11A airborne communications aircraft.

Goldfein said that he had been told it was an E-11A while en route to an event hosted by the Center for a New American Security in Washington, DC, but that he did not have complete information about the crash or its cause.

"It appears we have lost an aircraft. We don't know the status of the crew," Goldfein told reporters.

"Our A3, director of operations, and [Air Force Central Command] commander, Gen. [Joseph] Gustella, are working with Gen. Miller to make sure ... we know what's happened and how to deal with it," Goldfein added, referring to Gen. Scott Miller, the current head of the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan.

US military officials had previously said the aircraft in question was an E-11A, which is made by Bombardier, and that it had crashed in Taliban-held territory in Ghazni Province, north of Kandahar, in eastern Afghanistan a few minutes after 1 p.m. local time.

A local journalist told The Associated Press that he had seen two bodies lying beside the aircraft. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed in a statement that all passengers, which he said included high-ranking CIA officers, were killed.

"Every time I've been through this, which unfortunately has been a number of times, first reports always wrong," Goldfein said on Monday. "So we've got to make sure we have the facts right" before sharing additional details.

Videos taken at the scene showed the E-11's heavily damaged cockpit and main fuselage, which were on fire. The tail of was mostly intact with the Air Combat Command seal, tail number 11-9358, and USAF roundel clearly visible, according to Air Force Magazine.

The Air Force keeps four E-11s at Kandahar Airfield. The long-range business jets have been modified to carry the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node, which links communications for forces on the ground, allowing different systems to talk to each other.

The node also connects ground troops with Forward Air Controllers and Joint Terminal Attack Controllers, who direct airstrikes and other air support, in a non-line-of-sight environment, according to The Aviationist.

The E-11As flying out of Kandahar are operated by the 430th Expeditionary Electronic Squadron, which was created to fill what the Air Force has called "a joint urgent operational need" due to the challenges that Afghanistan's terrain posed for communications.

The E-11s arrived in Afghanistan in 2009 and flew its 10,000th sortie in late February 2017, according to the Air Force, which said the aircraft has been called "as essential to mission success as bullets."

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