Azerbaijani plane crash kills all 23 onboard
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-12-24 08:46

An Azerbaijani plane with 23 people onboard crashed soon after taking off from Baku Friday night and all the people aboard the plane were killed, officials of the airport and transport police said.

The An-140 plane owned by the state-run Azerbaijani Airlines took off at 22:19 (1819 GMT) with 18 passengers and 5 crew members onboard on a flight to Aktau, Kazakhstan, and crashed eight minutes later near the capital city, a Baku airport official was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

An Antonov An-140 twin-engine turboprop, is wheeled out an hangar at the Antonov aircraft plant in Kiev, Ukraine, in this June 6, 1997 file photo.[AP/file]

The wreckage of the plane was found some 35 km from Baku and all the 23 aboard the ill-fated plane were dead, an official of the transport police department told the RIA Novosti news agency.

The official said rescue workers had arrived at the site of the crash but the so-called black boxes -- the flight data and cabin voice recorders -- of the plane have not been found. Retrieving efforts were complicated by rainfall at the scene.

Azerbaijani Airlines bought the plane two years ago from Ukraine. The An-140 is a medium-ragne plane with two propeller engines that can seat up to 52 passengers.

An Azerbaijani Airlines cargo plane crashed in west China in May 2004, killing all seven crewmen onboard.