Posted on 12/23/2005 2:51:10 PM PST by bd476
BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane with 23 people aboard crashed along the Caspian Sea shore and all aboard were believed killed, a police official said early Saturday.
The police duty officer in the Sabunchi region north of the capital, Baku, said the plane's wreckage was found along the shore. He declined to give his name because he was not authorized to act as a spokesman.
The plane disappeared from radar shortly after takeoff from Baku en route to the Kazakh city of Aktau on the other side of the Caspian Sea, two airport employees told The Associated Press. Both said there were 18 passengers aboard and one said there were an additional five crew members.
The plane was identified as an An-140, a twin-engine turboprop.
Baku and Aktau are centers of the thriving Caspian Sea oil industry, which has attracted substantial foreign investment.
The wings break off on those things.....
Azerbaijan - a nation with a Turkic and majority-Muslim population - regained its independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Despite a 1994 cease-fire, Azerbaijan has yet to resolve its conflict with Armenia over the Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh enclave (largely Armenian populated).
Azerbaijan has lost 16% of its territory and must support some 571,000 internally displaced persons as a result of the conflict. Corruption is ubiquitous and the promise of widespread wealth from Azerbaijan's undeveloped petroleum resources remains largely unfulfilled.
The World Factbook
is it just me but aren't a lot of planes labeled "AN" and "TU" losing the quest for safe flight? Anyone....
Thanks for posting the photo of the turboprop plane.
BBC News
Friday, 23 December 2005, 23:18 GMT
Azerbaijan plane crash 'kills 23'
An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet has crashed after taking off from the Azeri capital, Baku, killing all 23 people on board, officials say. The aircraft was heading to Aktau in Kazakhstan across the Caspian Sea with 18 passengers and five crew on board.
A police spokesman said that wreckage was found along the Caspian coast, but there was no evidence of survivors.
Russia's Ria news agency said the plane took off at 2119 (1819 GMT) but fell off radar screens 20 minutes later.
It is reported to have come down near the village of Kyurdakhany, about 15km (10 miles) from Baku, Ria said.
The Associated Press news agency described the plane as an An-140 twin engine turboprop.
A police spokesman, who gave his name as Kadykov, told Reuters news agency: "The plane has crashed, 23 people on board are dead.
An operations centre was set up near the Caspian coastline some 20km (13 miles) north of Baku, AP reported.
A doctor at a hospital in Baku said that two bodies were recovered from the suspected crash site.
Baku and Akmau are centres of the Caspian Sea oil industry.
Azerbaijan plane crash 'kills 23'
The Age
23 killed in Azerbaijan plane crash
December 24, 2005 - 8:29AM
Twenty-three people were killed when a passenger plane crashed in Azerbaijan soon after take-off from the Caucasus state's capital Baku.
A reporter with independent Azeri television channel Lider said by telephone from the scene of the crash that he saw medical teams removing bodies from the wreckage of the plane near the seashore at Nardaran, on the outskirts of Baku.
"Witnesses of the crash told us that before the plane crashed they saw it making slow circles as if the crew were trying to direct it away from residential areas," Mekham Mekhtiyev said.
The Antonov An-140 aircraft, bound for the Kazakh city of Aktau, disappeared from radar screens soon after take-off from Baku.
"The plane has crashed, 23 people on board are dead," the duty officer at a local police branch, who identified himself as Kadykov, told Reuters by telephone. "The cause of the crash is unknown."
Senior officials from police and airline AZAL were at the scene.
Azerbaijan, situated on the Caspian Sea, is a former Soviet republic with a thriving oil and gas industry that has attracted large-scale foreign investment. It was not immediately known if any foreigners were among the dead.
The An-140 is a relatively new short-range passenger plane designed in the 1990s. The aircraft, which has two propeller engines and can carry up to 52 passengers, is produced jointly by Ukraine and Russia.
23 killed in Azerbaijan plane crash
ABC News and AP
Azerbaijani Plane Crashes; 23 Said Killed
December 23, 2005
BAKU, Azerbaijan Dec 23, 2005 — An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane with 23 people aboard crashed on the Caspian Sea coast and all aboard were believed killed, a police official said early Saturday.
An Antonov An-140 twin-engine turboprop, is wheeled out an hangar at the Antonov aircraft plant in Kiev, Ukraine, in this June 6, 1997 file photo. An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane with 18 passengers and five crewmembers aboard went missing after takeoff from the airport in the capital Baku , an airport dispatcher said early Saturday Dec. 23, 2005. The ITAR-Tass news agency reported that the plane an An-140 went missing while flying between Baku and the Kazakh city of Aktau. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
The police duty officer in the Sabunchi region north of the capital, Baku, said the plane's wreckage was found along the shore. He declined to give his name because he was not authorized to act as a spokesman.
The plane disappeared from radar shortly after takeoff from Baku's airport en route to Aktau, Kazakhstan, on the other side of the Caspian, two airport employees told The Associated Press. Both said there were 18 passengers aboard and one said there were also five crew members.
The plane was identified as an An-140, a twin-engine turboprop.
Both Baku and Aktau are centers of the thriving Caspian Sea oil industry, which has attracted substantial foreign investment. There was no immediate indication whether any Westerners were aboard the plane.
Azerbaijani Plane Crashes; 23 Said Killed
The link below goes to the thread where I posted several different versions of the story about the crash:
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