KABUL, Afghanistan -- A civilian cargo plane crashed at Bagram Airfield on Monday, officials said.

Lt. Quenton Roehricht, of the International Security Assistance Force, said the plane developed some kind of problem "very shortly" after taking off and crashed at about 3 p.m. local time (6:30 a.m. ET).

"At this time, we can confirm there was no insurgent activity when contact was lost," he said.

Roehricht said information was still being gathered and he was not able to confirm whether there had been any casualties or what might have caused the crash.

Zamaray Khan, a local police chief, said there was a large fire after the plane crashed and it appeared that the crew members had been killed.

The Taliban claimed in a statement that it had shot down an American plane at 4 p.m. local time (7:30 a.m. ET).

It said the alleged downing of the plane was part of its spring offensive, which began Sunday and which the Taliban pledged would be "monumental.”

The Taliban is known for employing bombastic language in describing its achievements, and its claims are frequently invalidated or unproved.

At least three police officers were killed by a bomb in Ghazni province in the east of the country on Sunday.

NBC News' Ian Johnston contributed to this report.

Related:

Taliban marks start of 'monumental' spring offensive with deadly attack

Plane crash kills four American service members in Afghanistan

This story was originally published on Mon Apr 29, 2013 9:21 AM EDT

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A member of the Indonesia Search and Rescue Agency prepares to look for the cockpit voice recorder inside the wreckage of a 737-800 that crashed into the sea on Saturday in Bali.

The pilot whose jet slumped into the sea while trying to land in Bali, Indonesia, has described how he felt it "dragged" down by wind while he struggled to regain control, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

All 108 passengers and crew members survived when the Boeing 737-800 passenger jet, operated by Indonesian budget carrier Lion Air, undershot the tourist island's main airport runway and belly-flopped in water on Saturday.

Officials stress it was too early to say what caused the incident, which is being investigated by Indonesian authorities with the assistance of U.S. crash investigators and Boeing.

But initial debriefings, witness comments and weather reports have focused attention on the possibility of wind shear or a downdraft from storm clouds known as a microburst.

Experts say the violent and unpredictable gusts can leave even the most modern jet helpless if they are stronger than the plane's ability to fly out of trouble -- with the plane most vulnerable in the moments before landing.

"If you have a downdraft which exceeds the performance of the plane, then even if you put on full thrust you will go downhill and you can't climb out," said Hugh Dibley, a former British Airways captain and expert on loss-of-control events.

According to initial pilot debriefings, details of which have been described to Reuters, Flight JT-904 was on an eastward approach to Bali's Ngurah Rai Airport at midafternoon on Saturday after a normal flight from Bandung, West Java.

The co-pilot, an Indian national with 2,000 hours of relevant flying experience, was in charge for the domestic trip, which was scheduled to last 1 hour and 40 minutes.

As the Lion Air plane was coming in to land, with an aircraft of national carrier Garuda following behind and another about to take off on the runway just ahead, the co-pilot lost sight of the runway as heavy rain drove across the windshield.

The captain, an Indonesian citizen with about 15,000 hours experience and an instructor's license, took the controls.

Between 400 and 200 feet, pilots described flying through a wall of water, according to the source. Bursts of heavy rainfall and lost visibility are not uncommon in the tropics, but the aircraft's low height meant the crew had little time to react.

With no sight of the runway lights or markings, the captain decided to abort the landing and perform a "go around," a routine maneuver for which pilots are trained.

SAR via EPA

An Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency photo shows teams working to help passengers on a Lion Air plane after it crashed into the water in Bali on Saturday.

But the captain told officials afterward that instead of climbing, the brand-new 737 started to sink uncontrollably.

From 200 feet, well-practiced routines unraveled quickly.

"The captain says he intended to go around but that he felt the aircraft dragged down by the wind; that is why he hit the sea," said the source, who was briefed on the crew's testimony.

"There was rain coming east to west; very heavy," the source said, asking not to be named because no one is authorized to speak publicly about the investigation while it is under way.

However, Erasmus Kayadu, the head of Ngurah Rai Airport's weather station, said there was no rain during the crash period and that visibility was 6 miles.

The weather station's data showed the wind speed was 7 mph with lots of low cloud cover, including dense storm clouds, said Kayadu, who is involved in the investigation.

A passenger on board the jet painted a picture of an aircraft getting into difficulty only at the last minute. "There was no sign at all it would fall but then suddenly it dropped into the water," Tantri Widiastuti, 60, told Metro TV.

Lion Air declined to comment on the cause of the crash.

Both pilots were given urine tests by the Indonesian police and were cleared for drugs and alcohol, the Reuters source said.

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Irina Gorbaseva / AP

Investigators at the scene of a plane crash outside an airport in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on Thursday.

At least five people were killed when a plane carrying supporters to a European soccer match in eastern Ukraine overshot the runway and broke up when it attempted an emergency landing late on Wednesday, officials said.

The twin-engined Antonov turboprop was bringing 45 passengers and crew on a charter flight from the Black Sea coastal city of Odessa to Donetsk - most of them fans looking forward to attending a Champions League clash between the Ukrainian home team Shakhtar and Germany's Borussia Dortmund.

The emergencies ministry, quoted by Interfax news agency, said the aircraft overshot the landing strip at Donetsk airport which an eyewitness said was shrouded in thick fog at the time. It overturned and broke up.

Apart from the five people confirmed dead, 12 others had been injured, the ministry said.

Andriy Shyshatsky, head of Donetsk's regional administration speaking before a fifth dead was confirmed, said the majority of passengers had been saved.

"One person is visible in the wreckage, but we don't yet know whether he is alive or not. We are searching for one other person," Shyshatsky told journalists.

An airport source quoted by Interfax said a stewardess who had been at the rear of the plane was unaccounted for.

A minute of silence was observed for the dead at the start of the Champions League match.

There was no immediate word on why the flight crew had had to make an emergency landing. But a survivor of the crash, quoted by Interfax, said there had been a fire on board which had been brought under control.

This was not immediately confirmed by officials.

Reuters

The remains of a military transport plane that crashed near Shymkent on December 25, 2012 are seen in this still image from a video.

ALMATY, Kazakhstan — A military transport plane crashed in southern Kazakhstan on Tuesday, killing all 27 people on board, including the country's acting border service chief.

The Russian-made An-72 crashed about 7 p.m. local time (8 a.m. ET) about 12 miles from the city of Shymkent near the border with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan's Committee for National Security said in a statement.

"The plane has burned up. Only some of its fragments remain," the news agency RIA quoted the head of the regional emergencies department as saying.

More world coverage on NBCNews.com

Without specifying further details, authorities said an investigation was opened into the crash. No cause was given, but southern Kazakhstan over recent weeks has been buffeted by winds, heavy snows and low temperatures, causing widespread flight delays.

An eyewitness said he heard a loud explosion and saw flames at the crash site, the station reported.

The plane was carrying a crew of seven as well as 20 servicemen.

Kazakhstan's acting border service chief, Turganbek Stambekov, was appointed in June, after a mass killing of 14 frontier troops in a remote Kazakh outpost near China the month before.

The Kazakh-Uzbek border stretches across 1,350 miles of Central Asian steppes and deserts.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Rescue workers and firefighters work to contain a fire while they continue to look for survivors at the scene of the crashed Dana Airline plane in the densely populated Toyin Area of Iju Ishaga in Lagos, on June 4. The flight that crashed in Nigeria's largest city of Lagos, reported both of its engines failed before it went down.

Sunday Alamba / AP

Rescue workers carry bodies at the site of a plane crash in Lagos, Nigeria, Monday, June 4. Firefighters pulled at least one body from a building that was damaged by the crash as several charred corpses could be seen in the rubble.

Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters

People watch as a crane lifts the remnants of the tail of the plane at Iju-Ishaga neighborhood in Lagos June 4. Nigerian emergency services pulled more bodies out of the still-smouldering, ash-covered wreckage of a plane that crashed killing all 153 people on board.

Sunday Alamba / AP

A rescue worker search through the debris at the site of a plane crash in Lagos, Nigeria, Monday, June 4. A passenger plane carrying more than 150 people crashed in Nigeria's largest city on Sunday, government officials said. Firefighters pulled at least one body from a building that was damaged by the crash and searched for survivors.

AP reports:  LAGOS, Nigeria — Police dogs sniffed for dead bodies Monday in the rubble of buildings destroyed when an airliner crashed into them, killing all 153 aboard, as cranes lifted away heavy pieces of debris in the grisly aftermath of Nigeria's worst air disaster in nearly two decades.

Rescue officials said they fear many more people may have perished on the ground. Continue reading...

Story: Engine problems eyed after passenger jet crashes in Nigeria suburb

A tropical adventure turned into a terrifying fight for survival for a vacationing Texas family when their plane crashed into the ocean.

A group of strangers risked their lives to save the Atkinses on Jan. 11 along the coast of Roatan, a small island in the Caribbean off Honduras.

See video, read the original story at NBCDFW.com

"We crashed," said Andy Atkins, an attorney in Dallas. "We lost an engine, is what I was told, and we crashed into the ocean and flipped over and were stuck underwater."

Atkins; his wife, Jenny; and their 4-year-old son, Logan; were on a sightseeing ride. Atkins said he had flown in the small seaplane once before to enjoy the sights along the coast of Roatan.

"It was just an awesome fun ride, that's all I can tell you," he said. "Great views and great pictures and a slow-flying plane that felt very stable."

The plane's pilot helped Atkins get to the surface, but there was no sign of his wife and son.

"I dove back under looking for them, came back, got air, went immediately back down, and I just came up and I had Logan in my arms and, by the time i got to the surface, Jenny was also at the surface with the pilot holding her," Atkins said.

Several people on a nearby boat quickly dove in to save them.

"We were all still in shock at that point," Atkins said. "We knew that we had survived the initial crash, but we didn't know where it was going to go from there."

Remarkably, a U.S. Navy doctor and another physician were among the divers on much a larger boat. They immediately started treating Atkins' wife and son.

"They screamed that there's two doctors on board," he said. 'They got both of them on the back of that boat to give them oxygen and treated them with all their skill."

The entire family spent days in a hospital before returning home late Thursday night.

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Rescuers work near an overturned Russian-made Tupolev 134 passenger jet at the airfield outside Osh, Kyrgyzstan on Dec. 28. The packed TU-134 flipped over and caught fire on landing in the southern Kyrgyz city today injuring at least six people, officials and witnesses said.

Pool via AFP - Getty Images

Rescuers work near an overturned Russian-made Tupolev 134 passenger jet at the airfield outside Osh on Dec. 28. The packed TU-134 flipped over and caught fire on landing in the southern Kyrgyz city today injuring at least six people, officials and witnesses said.

Amazing that all the passengers survived. 

AP reports:

The Kyrgyz government says that 31 people have been injured in the crash-landing of a passenger jet.

Kyrgyzstan's Health Ministry said the Soviet-built Tu-134 jet was carrying 95 passengers and six crew when it crash-landed in deep fog Wednesday at the airport of the southern city of Osh.

Emergency Situations Minister Kubatbek Boronov said the plane flying from the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek was damaged when it made a rough landing in Osh. He didn't elaborate, but eyewitnesses said the jet rolled off the runway, broke its wing, overturned and caught fire.

Boronov said that 17 of the 31 injured were hospitalized.

The Tu-134 is a two-engine jet that has remained in service with many post-Soviet carriers.