WORLD : 57 Killed as Soviet Paratrooper Transport Crashes in Azerbaijan
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MOSCOW — A military transport plane carrying soldiers helping keep order in the ethnically tense southern republic of Azerbaijan crashed, killing all 57 people on board, Tass press agency reported today.
Tass said the paratroopers were being taken from an airport in the Caucasus Military District in an Ilyushin-76 plane when it crashed Wednesday night.
The agency did not say where in Azerbaijan the crash occurred or provide any other details about the circumstances. It said the huge transport carried a crew of seven as well as 50 passengers.
Interior Minister Vadim Bakatin told reporters the plane crashed into a body of water 1,500 feet from shore, but did not identify the location.
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