Free Republic

BAKU. Dec 24 (Interfax) - Ilham Amirov, deputy general director of Azerbaijani state airline AzAL, said it "cannot be ruled out" that "a terrorist act" caused Friday's crash of an An-140-100 airliner near Baku. Amirov told reporters that the plane had been in use for only about a year. Amirov said the investigation of the crash had produced some preliminary findings, but that investigators have yet to disclose them.

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...