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Azerbaijan airlines suspends flights
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-27 09:19 Azerbaijan's national airline has suspended
flights by its one remaining Ukrainian-built plane and put off plans to acquire
two more after a crash of the model killed 23 people, officials said Monday.
All 18 passengers and five crew were killed when an Azerbaijani Airlines
An-140 plunged onto the Caspian Sea shore about 20 miles north of the
Azerbaijani capital, Baku, shortly after takeoff late Friday. The plane was en
route to Aktau, a city on Kazakhstan's Caspian Sea coast.
Ilham Amirov, the lead investigator into the crash, said Saturday that
officials were looking at a control system failure as the most probable cause of
the crash. But he added that it was too early to dismiss other possible causes,
including terrorism.
Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev (R)
attends a scene of Antonov An-140 plane crash at seashore at Nardaran, on
the outskirts of Baku, December 24,
2005.[Reuters] | Azerbaijani Airlines "has one An-140 still left and it was immediately taken
out of service following this tragic event until the reasons for the accident
have been established," said a senior manager at the airline, Faramakh Mahmudov.
Azerbaijan has also decided to hold off on plans to acquire two more An-140s
that it has purchased from Ukraine, said Rauf Jafaradze, the airline's deputy
chief.
Azerbaijan was the first foreign commercial customer for the An-140, a
twin-engine turboprop designed by Ukraine's Antonov company. The plane, which is
capable of carrying about 50 passengers on medium-range flights, has seen a long
and difficult development amid severe funding problems that crippled Ukraine's
aviation industry after the 1991 Soviet collapse.
A plane of the same make crashed in Iran in December 2002, killing all 44
people on board.
Also Monday, the office of Azerbaijan's chief prosecutor said it has opened a
criminal investigation into possible violations of safety measures or flight
rules.
Such a measure is common after crashes in the former Soviet Union, and the
statement did not indicate whether any specific violations were suspected or who
might be to blame.
Local television stations reported the wreckage was spread over a space of
about a mile, a pattern that could indicate an explosion.
The plane's black boxes, recovered Sunday, will be sent to Russia or Ukraine
for analysis, Amirov said.
The victims included many foreigners ¡ª a Briton, an Australian, a Turk, a
Georgian and four citizens of Kazakhstan. Azerbaijan's booming oil sector has
brought in many Western firms such as British Petroleum.
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