Posted on 05/03/2013 4:16:35 AM PDT by cunning_fish
A US cargo plane has crashed after taking off from an airbase in Kyrgyzstan, local reports say.
The tanker aircraft had left the US Manas airbase near the capital Bishkek, officials told AFP.
The emergency situations ministry said the plane had broken into three pieces but information about casualties has yet to be released.
Seven crew members died when a US civilian cargo plane crashed at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan on Monday.
Witnesses of the Kyrgyzstan crash told local media that they heard a boom and saw an explosion.
The transport plane was carrying a cargo of fuel when it disappeared off the radar near the mountain village of Chaldybar, close to the border with Kazakhstan, Reuters reported.
The US military uses the Manas airbase to maintain its operations in Afghanistan.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
"BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) — A U.S. military refueling tanker plane crashed Friday in Kyrgyzstan, the Central Asian nation's emergencies ministry said. There was no immediate word on any casualties.APKyrgyzstan hosts a U.S. base that is used for flying troops into and out of Afghanistan and for KC-135 tanker planes that refuel warplanes in flight.
The plane crashed Friday afternoon near the village of Chaldovar, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of the Manas air base, the ministry said in a statement. It identified the plane as a Boeing 707, but that is a civilian airliner on which the KC-135 tanker is based.
The plane broke into three pieces when it crashed into an uninhabited area, the head of the region that includes Chaldovar, Kuralbek Khamaliyev, told The Associated Press by telephone.
The U.S. base in Kyrgyzstan, called the Transit Center at Manas, said it had no immediate information. The base, which is adjacent to the Manas International Airport outside the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, was established in late 2001 to support the international military campaign in Afghanistan.
The base has been the subject of a contentious dispute between the United States and its host nation. In 2009, the U.S. reached an agreement with the Kyrgyz government to use the base in return for $60 million a year.
But the lease runs out in June 2014 and the United States wants to keep the base beyond that point to aid in the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
Yes, it seems like a planes drops like flies in that part of the world recently.
Yep!
And I’ve been on board those planes. The crews are the best in the world.
Don’t think these are accidents.
Where did those manpads from Libya go?
Everywhere. There are 20000+ of them.
Ugh.
>>Good to see this Government set its piorties straight/
Straight and Nappy.
Hmmm
Are we still flying the old A model KC-135s or have they all been re-engined with the CFM-56s?
}:-)4
One was a civilian plane.
Well, it could be all three if the fuel was to unloaded at the destination (fuel being transported cargo and being stored in tanks), but a better descriptor would be nice.
Carrying a cargo of fuel. Tight security over there? How convenient/easy would it be for someone to sneak an explosive on board before take off?
Don’t think so.
More likely is the possibility of weapons from Libya shooting at the plane.
Unfortunately they are flying the old tanker’s still. One reason it has been a big interest in the tanker community to procure a new weapon system. Haven’t seen a new tanker since the 1980’s, which were only 60 KC-10’s, with only 59 remaining in the fleet. I watched the missing one burn to the ground on 17 Sep 87 at Barksdale AFB, LA. Great day to have a crew bus 15 minutes late or I would have been up close and personal on the aircraft parked next to it.
The cargo plane was a separate incident just the other day. It crashed on takeoff, presumably from a load that shifted aft or it wasn’t loaded properly in the first place. There is a video of it on youtube.
Interesting - 2 crashes in that area, days apart - within a month since Boston. Have there been similar “accidents” there in the past?
The ones remaining in service have all been re-engined. However, they still have the same old airframe, many of them built well over 50 years ago.
They require a lot of maintenance to keep them flying. I suspect that has been cut to the bone, plus they have been run hard since 9/11/2001. It is a wonder we haven't lost more of these as well as other older aircraft. We have a rapidly aging and ridden hard fleet of military aircraft in all categories.
We had the old KC-135A Water Wagons in Saudi when we started Elf-One in the 1980s. As the Vice-Commander I was always having to respond to the locals in Riyadh about the dark black smoke they put out on take off as they climb over the city.
Multi-tasking USAF?
This is two major plane crashes in a week.
The first one was a commercial/contractor 747.
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