[The National UAE}- A passenger plane with 100 people on board crashed Friday shortly after takeoff from Almaty airport in Kazakhstan, the government said, killing at least 15 people.
The crash injured at least 66 others, officials in Almaty said.
The Bek Air aircraft hit a concrete fence and a two-story building after takeoff from Almaty International Airport. It said the plane lost attitude at 7.22am.
Bek Air #Z92100 crashed shortly after takeoff from Almaty this morning. Preliminary ADS-B data is available at https://t.co/mZRiDsJVkx. We are currently retrieving and processing granular ADS-B data for this flight. pic.twitter.com/n0G5sujqiM
In a statement on its Facebook page, the airport said there was no fire and a rescue operation got under way immediately following the crash.
The plane was flying to Nur-Sultan, the country’s capital formerly known as Astana.
The aircraft was identified as a Fokker-100, a medium-sized, twin-turbofan jet airliner. The company manufacturing the aircraft went bankrupt in 1996 and the production of the Fokker-100 stopped the following year.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev pledged to provide families of the victims with compensation and tweeted that those responsible “will be severely punished in accordance with the law.”
Tokayev also said that a government commission had been set up to investigate the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.
In March, a Bek Air Fokker-100 plane with 116 passengers made an emergency landing at the capital’s international airport after its landing gear failed to deploy. None of the passengers or five-member crew were injured.
Kazakhstan’s industry ministry said in a statement Friday that the Fokker-100 model would be grounded until the cause of the accident became clear.
This image made from video shows the site of a plane crash at Essendon Airport in Melbourne, Australia Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2017. An official says a light plane has crashed into a shopping mall in the city of Melbourne. (Channel 9 via AP)
A commercial charter flight heading from Essendon Airport in Melbourne to King Island in the Bass Strait crashed in a “massive fireball” into a shopping center near the airport, shortly after takeoff killing all the five people on board.
Sky News reported that the Beechcraft Super King Airplane came in ‘low and fast’ before it crashed onto DFO (Direct Factory Outlet) at Essendon Fields at about 9am on Tuesday, February 21, 2017.
The twin-engine aircraft which was owned by Myjet had been hired by Corporate and Leisure Travel.
None of the staff at the shopping center which was not yet open to the public was injured or killed.
News Corp has confirmed the identity of the pilot as an Australian man named Max Quartermain while the United States state department has confirmed to US network NBC in a statement that all of the four passengers were Americans.
According to Sky News report, two of the four passengers are Greg Reynolds De Haven and Russell Munsch, as being named by their families on social media.
Police said that the plane had a “catastrophic engine failure” and was turning back to the airport before it crashed.
Both the Essendon airport and the DFO shopping centre are closed to allow for investigations.
Please click the photos for larger images:
Witnesses said the plane clipped a JB Hi-Fi store before exploding in the adjacent Spotlight venue. Source: AAP
Witnesses described the shockwave felt after the plane crashed into the shopping centre. Photo: 7 News.
Five on board the plane were killed on impact. Photo: 7 News.
Melbourne’s Tullamarine Freeway was declared a crime scene as what appears to be one of the wheels from the plane came to rest on the roadway. Photo: AAP
The damage at the back of the DFO building where the plane hit. Source: AAP
Victorian Police Minister Lisa Neville has confirmed that five passengers were onboard the plane. (Yahoo News)
The plane nosedived into the DFO shopping centre on the Tullamarine Freeway in Melbourne’s north. Source: Facebook/Yahoo News
A car parked out the front of Spotlight was destroyed in the blaze.
Source: Yahoo News
This image made from video shows the site of a plane crash at Essendon Airport in Melbourne, Australia Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2017. An official says a light plane has crashed into a shopping mall in the city of Melbourne. (Channel 9 via AP)
In this image made from video, smoke billows from the site of a plane crash at Essendon Airport in Melbourne, Australia Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2017. An official says a light plane has crashed into a shopping mall in the city of Melbourne. The mall adjoins the airport. (Channel 9 via AP)
This image made from video shows the site of a plane crash at Essendon Airport in Melbourne, Australia Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2017. An official says a light plane has crashed into a shopping mall in the city of Melbourne. (Channel 9 via AP)
A huge cloud of smoke could be seen from the nearby airport
