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| More Than a Dozen Killed in Plane Crash in Kazakhstan | |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| MOSCOW — At least 15 people were killed when a Bek Air plane crashed into a building shortly after departing from Almaty International Airport in Kazakhstan on Friday. | |
| Some of the passengers survived, airport officials said in a statement. There were 95 passengers and five crew members on board. At least six children were among the dead, according to a spokesman for Kazakhstan’s Interior Ministry, Nursultan Nurakhmetov, the Interfax news agency reported. | |
| At 7:22 a.m., the plane, a Fokker 100, bound for Nur-Sultan, the Kazakh capital, lost altitude and crashed into a two-story building, officials said. The crash took place in a residential area near the airport, Mr. Nurakhmetov said. Airport officials said 14 people were dead at the scene and another five were in the hospital in critical condition. A 15th victim died in the hospital, a medical official said, according to Interfax. | |
| The cause was not immediately known. Photographs carried by Kazakh news outlets showed the fuselage of the passenger jet ripped to pieces in the snow amid the rubble of a building. Rescue workers combed the wreckage. In one photo, emergency workers are seen picking through the debris — a red suitcase, a building’s window frame, and pieces of the aircraft. | |
| “Where is the ambulance?” a woman can be heard saying on a video from the scene circulated by the Kazakh news media. “People are asking for an ambulance and it’s not arriving.” | |
| In another video, apparently filmed about 20 minutes after the crash, people can be heard moaning and screaming. No emergency workers can be seen. | |
| “We’re taking them out on our own and helping on our own,” a man says. | |
| Among the dead, Interfax reported, were the plane’s 38-year-old captain, Marat Muratbayev; an editor of a Kazakh news outlet, Dana Gruglova, who was 35; and a prominent Kazakh major-general, Rustem Kaydarov, 79. | |
| A survivor told the Kazakh news outlet, tengrinews.kz, that she heard a “terrifying sound” shortly after takeoff. The plane was flying at a tilt, she said. | |
| “Everything was like in a movie: yells, shouts, people crying,” the survivor said. | |
| Another survivor, Aslan Nazaraliyev, a businesman, told the Vremya newspaper that the plane was in the air for no more than two minutes before it shook violently. The plane briefly continued climbing, then started falling, at an angle. | |
| “Everyone was screaming, the children were crying, there was panic,” Mr. Nazaraliyev said. “It became clear that this wasn’t normal turbulence, but that control over the plane was lost.” | |
| Almaty, in southeastern Kazakhstan near the mountainous border with Kyrgyzstan, is the Central Asian country’s biggest city. | Almaty, in southeastern Kazakhstan near the mountainous border with Kyrgyzstan, is the Central Asian country’s biggest city. |
| The Kazakh authorities have halted flights of the Dutch-made Fokker 100, news agencies reported, citing the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development. Bek Air, which bills itself as Kazakhstan’s first low-cost airline, operates seven Fokker 100 jets and flies to 12 Kazakh destinations as well as Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia. | |
| A brief statement from Bek Air offered no details about the crash, saying it was waiting for official information from government workers at the scene. The company offered its condolences and warned Kazakhs about the risk of fraudsters taking advantage of the tragedy. | |
| On Twitter, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan expressed his condolences to the victims and said a government commission headed by the country’s prime minister, Askar Mamin, would investigate the crash. | On Twitter, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan expressed his condolences to the victims and said a government commission headed by the country’s prime minister, Askar Mamin, would investigate the crash. |
| “All the guilty will be punished severely in accordance with the law,” Mr. Tokayev said. | “All the guilty will be punished severely in accordance with the law,” Mr. Tokayev said. |
| Kazakhstan’s Interior Ministry said 976 people, 70 pieces of equipment and 33 ambulance brigades were involved in rescue efforts that were ongoing several hours after the crash, Interfax reported. | |
| The first emergency call arrived at 7:43 a.m. local time, or 21 minutes after the crash, according to a timeline provided by airport officials. The airport released the names of 60 people known to have survived the crash. | |
| Production on the Fokker 100 ceased in 1997, after its Dutch maker went into bankruptcy in 1996. Though many airlines have retired the aircraft, more than 100 are still active, mostly in Australia and Iran. | Production on the Fokker 100 ceased in 1997, after its Dutch maker went into bankruptcy in 1996. Though many airlines have retired the aircraft, more than 100 are still active, mostly in Australia and Iran. |
| The plane measures about 39 yards long, and has a passenger capacity of 109 people. | The plane measures about 39 yards long, and has a passenger capacity of 109 people. |
| In July this year, a Fokker 100 flying for Virgin Australia suffered engine failure after taking off from an airport in Western Australia. | |
| The crew attempted to restart the left engine after it began to fail as the aircraft was climbing, said the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is investigating the incident. They could not get the left engine to restart, but continued to fly to their destination 260 miles away. The plane landed safely with no injuries reported. A report on the investigation is expected in the first few months of the new year. | |
| And in November, a Fokker 100 flying for Alliance Airlines lost speed preparing to land at Rockhampton Airport in Queensland, the ATSB said. It ran into turbulence on its final approach and fell below the minimum approach speed. It landed safely, but the authorities were scrutinizing technical logs and recorded data, and interviewing crew. A report is expected later in 2020. | |
| Daniel Victor and Jamie Tarabay contributed reporting from Hong Kong. |