Amir condoles Kyrgyz crash that kills 37

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Kyrgyz Emergency Ministry officials and firefighters work among the remains of a crashed Turkish Boeing 747 cargo plane at a residential area outside Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on Jan 16. The cargo plane crashed Monday morning, killing people in the residential area adjacent to the Manas airport as well as those on the plane. (AP)

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 16, (Agencies): His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah Monday sent a cable of condolences to Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev over the victims of a plane crash in Kyrgyzstan capital, Bishkek, which left dozens of passengers dead or injured. In the cable, His Highness the Amir prayed that Allah the Almighty bless the souls of the victims, and wished swift recovery of the wounded.

Two cables of similar sentiments were sent to the Kyrgyz president by His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al- Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.

The Turkish cargo plane crashed Monday in a residential area just outside the main airport in Kyrgyzstan, destroying half of a village and killing at least 37 people in the plane and on the ground, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. The Boeing 747 crashed at 7:40 am local time while approaching Manas airport, south of the capital, Bishkek, in this Central Asian nation.

Footage from the scene showed the plane’s nose stuck inside a brick house and large chunks of debris scattered around. A dozen body bags were laid out in the yard of one home. A car parked nearby was mangled in the crash, and a refrigerator lay open.

The bodies of 15 victims, including five children, all of them Kyrgyz citizens, had been identified by Monday evening, the Kyrgyz government said on its website. Another 15 people, including six children, were hospitalized in the disaster, according to the health ministry. Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Minister Kubatbek Boronov said 23 out of the 43 houses in the village had been destroyed. Several dozen homes were near the fence surrounding the runway. The plane, which had departed from Hong Kong, belonged to the Istanbulbased cargo company ACT Airlines, which said the dead included the plane’s four Turkish crew members: two pilots, a freight expert and a flight technician.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. Boronov told reporters that it was foggy at Manas when the plane came down but weather conditions were not critical. One of the plane’s two flight recorders was recovered at the scene, according to the Kyrgyz prime minister’s office. “I woke up because of a bright red light outside,” resident Baktygul Kurbatova, who was slightly injured, told local television. “I couldn’t understand what was happening. It turns out the ceiling and the walls were crashing on us. I was so scared but I managed to cover my son’s face with my hands so debris would not fall on him.” The Manas airport has been considerably expanded since the United States began to operate a military installation there, using it primarily for its military operations in Afghanistan. The US handed the base over to the Kyrgyz military in 2014. ACT Airlines said on Monday that the crash wasn’t the result of “technical reasons or factors linked to the freight” on the plane. It did not specify the plane’s cargo. It said the plane’s records book had no record of any technical faults and said that the plane had not encountered any mishaps during its journey or as it proceeded to land at Bishkek. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev on Monday to express his condolences and convey his sadness at the loss of lives in the disaster.

Turkey’s transportation ministry also sent two experts from its accident investigation board to Bishkek to assist Kyrgyz authorities. “According to preliminary information, the plane crashed due to a pilot error,” Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Muhammetkaly Abulgaziev said at a briefing broadcast on state television. Crushed cars, shattered homes and huge chunks of burnt debris littered the village, which was hit by the plane at around 7:30 am (0130 GMT), as many residents were still at home in bed. “Our grandson said something was burning,” Tajikan, a Dacha Suu resident who identified herself only by her first name, told AFP. “We heard a roar and (what felt) like an earthquake. Many people were sleeping, everything around was burning. One of the parts of the aircraft fell on our neighbour’s house. She and her whole family died,” the pensioner said. Zumriyat Rezakhanova, another resident of Dacha Suu, said the plane fell “right on the homes” where residents were sleeping. “My sister’s home is badly damaged. Luckily she and her family survived,” Rezakhanova told AFP.

The flight was travelling from Hong Kong to Istanbul via Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek. One of the plane’s black boxes was recovered from the crash site, the government said a statement without specifying how long it would take to decipher it. International aviation experts and representatives of the company who flew the plane, ACT Airlines, will arrive at the crash site Tuesday, Abulgaziev said at a late briefing, adding that search operation will resume in the morning in areas where the largest pieces of the plane fell. The Turkish cargo airline, said in a statement that its Boeing 747-400 was involved in the crash. ACT Airlines said it was “deeply saddened” by the crash and noted that “the cause of the accident is unknown.” Boeing, the plane’s manufacturer, meanwhile extended its “deepest condolences” over the crash and offered to assist Kyrgyz authorities with the investigation. Elmira Sheripova, a spokeswoman for the emergency services ministry, told AFP that 17 houses had been “completely destroyed” by the plane

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