Uzbek Air Crash Kills 37, Including UN Official
Tue January 13, 2004 04:43 PM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4121171
By Shamil Baigin
TASHKENT (Reuters) - A Soviet-built Yak-40 airliner crashed on Tuesday evening as it approached the Uzbek capital Tashkent, killing 37 people, including a senior U.N. official, and scattering body parts over a wide area.
A statement issued by the state UzA news agency said all on board – 32 passengers and five crew – were killed as the plane came down on final approach on a domestic flight from Termez, on the Central Asian state’s border with Afghanistan.
“At 7:27 p.m. local time (9:27 a.m. EST), a Yak-40 aircraft crashed while landing at Tashkent airport,” the statement said.
An officer at the site had earlier told Reuters that more than 30 people were on board.
“The plane crashed on the runway and exploded,” he said.
In New York, United Nations officials said Richard Conroy, 56, the organization’s senior official in Uzbekistan, had been on board. A dual Australian and British national, he was an official of the U.N. Development Program and had worked in the ex-Soviet Central Asian state since 2001.
Russia’s Interfax news agency had earlier reported that staff members of international organizations, including the United Nations, had been on board.
A Reuters correspondent saw emergency workers carrying body parts away from the scene in large bags several hours after the plane crashed.
Uzbek President Islam Karimov met rescue workers at the site, sealed off by police cordons.
Officials gave no indication of what caused the crash. At least one news report ruled out any suggestion of foul play.
Residents said the airport had been covered in thick fog at the time of the accident.
The Yak-40, which normally carries up to 32 passengers, commonly operates on short runs in the former Soviet republics but is also often used as an executive jet.
There has been considerable concern about the safety of Soviet-built aircraft, though standards of maintenance have improved since the early post-communist years.
In the most serious crash involving a Soviet-built aircraft in recent months, 276 people, mostly Iranian servicemen, died aboard an Ilyushin-76 that came down in February 2003 on a mountain in southeastern Iran.
Comment:
Another plane crashes and another accident is the cause. A senior UN official also died, was it an accident? and was the UN official the target? Karimov the butcher of Tashkent visits the scene, i wonder if hes going to blame it upon muslim dawah carriers like he did when bombs exploded in tashkent a few years back? And to date has filled his prisons with sincere muslims who wish to live under Islamic law.