Plane crash destroys Kyrgyzstan village
A Turkish cargo plane crashed in a residential area outside Kyrgyzstan’s main international airport on Monday, destroying half of a village and killing at least 37 people in the plane and on the ground, the country’s Emergency Situations Ministry said.
The Boeing 747 crashed just outside the Manas airport, which is south of Bishkek, the capital. In this image, the tail of the aircraft is seen after the Jan. 16, 2017 crash.
The aftermath
Smoldering wreckage of the cargo plane is seen after it crashed. Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Minister Kubatbek Boronov said 23 out of the 43 houses in the village were destroyed.
Citing Kyrgyz officials, the Reuters news agency reported that there was dense fog in the area at the time. The nation’s deputy prime minister was later quoted as saying the crash was the result of human error.
Still standing
Anarkan Kozhoyeva, 65, returned home on Monday morning, finding that her house was the only one still standing on her street in Dachi Suu village. All others were leveled by the jumbo jet crash, which killed entire families in their sleep.
“I am alone now, all of my neighbors are dead,” Kozhoyeva said. “Our house was just 20 meters away” from the destroyed area.
“I am terrified, I don’t know how to live on,” she said, weeping.
Victims
In this image, members of rescue teams stand next to body bags with victims at the crash site. 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.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called his Kyrgyz counterpart, Erlan Abdildaev, to offer Turkey’s condolences, Turkey’s foreign ministry said.
In a tweet, Boeing offered its condolences.
“Our condolences to all who lost loved ones in the Kyrgyzstan accident,” the official Twitter account of Boeing Commercial Airplanes said, adding that Boeing stands ready to assist in an investigation.
The crash site
The plane had departed from Hong Kong, and it belonged to the Istanbul-based cargo company ACT Airlines.
ACT Airlines said the dead included the plane’s four Turkish crew members: two pilots, a freight expert and a flight technician.
A member of a rescue team walks at the crash site in this Jan. 16, 2017 image.
Rescue team and investigators
More than a thousand rescue workers were at the scene of the crash by late Monday morning in the residential area where homes were destroyed, Deputy Prime Minister Mukhammetkaly Abulgaziyev said.
In this Jan. 16 photo, members of a rescue team and investigators work at the crash site.
Rescue teams
Rescue teams are seen at the crash site, near Kyrgyzstan’s Manas airport outside Bishkek.
Rescue team
Members of a rescue team work at the crash site.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.