Turkish plane crashes into homes
January 16, 2017
Emergency services told news agencies that most of the dead were from the Kyrgyzstani village of Dacha-Suu, where the jet crashed into houses.
The local news site Zanoza tweeted images showing a plane wheel which had landed in the room of a house.
The Boeing 747 cargo plane was flying from Hong Kong to Istanbul via Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek when it missed the runway as it attempted to land in thick fog.
Kyrgyzstan's transport ministry identified the plane as a Boeing 747-400 belonging to Turkish Airlines, but in a tweet, the company said it belonged to another Turkish firm, ACT Airlines, which operates under the name MyCargo.
Officials said the crash happened at around 7.30am local time (01.30 UTC) on Monday.
The dead included at least nine adults and six children, the Russian news agency TASS said.
The four pilots also died, Kyrgyzstan's health ministry said.
Kyrgyz leaders told state media that although it was too early to draw a conclusion, they were considering pilot error as a possible cause. The plane's black boxes, used for recording conversations on board the flight, have been sent to Moscow for analysis.
Around 15 houses were damaged by the crash, which set off fires that have now been contained, emergency services said.
The country's Manas airport has been closed and flights cancelled until evening at the earliest, airport authorities said.
mm/rt (AFP, dpa)