System Failure Is Suspected in Azerbaijan Plane Crash
The failure of an Azerbaijani airliner’s control system probably caused it to crash, killing all 23 people on board, an airline official said Saturday.
But Ilham Amirov, the deputy chief of Azerbaijani Airlines, said it was too early to dismiss other possible causes, including a terrorist attack, of the crash Friday night of the An-140 twin-engine turboprop.
Emergency workers combed the wreckage Saturday for clues, and first deputy prosecutor general Rustam Usubov said they were still looking for the flight data and voice recorders.
The crash killed all 18 passengers and five crew members, Usubov said.
The passenger list included several foreigners -- a Briton, an Australian, a Turk, a Georgian and four citizens of Kazakhstan -- said Valida Aslanova, a dispatcher at the international airport in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, where the plane took off.
The development of the An-140 -- designed by Ukraine’s Antonov company -- has been troubled because of the country’s severe funding problems.
A plane of the same make crashed in Iran in December 2002, killing all 46 people on board. Azerbaijani Airlines was the first foreign commercial customer for the An-140, which can carry 50 people on medium-range flights.
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