The Indian air force says it has spotted the wreckage of its AN-32 transport plane nine days after it went missing near the border with China, but the fate of 13 people on board is still not known.

Local administrator Mito Dirchi says a ground search team is on its way to the crash site in a heavily wooded and uninhabited mountainous terrain in Shi Yomi district in northeastern Arunachal Pradesh.

The air force said in a tweet Tuesday that the wreckage was spotted by a helicopter at an elevation of nearly 12,000 feet (3,657 meters).

The plane was flying to a high-altitude airstrip in Mechuka, a small town about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the India-China border in Arunachal Pradesh state.