Plane crash kills at least 31
Thirty-one people, most of them Turkish construction workers, were killed Tuesday when their chartered plane crashed in heavy fog while trying to land in Iraq, Turkish and Iraqi officials said.
The cause of the crash near Balad, about 50 miles north of the capital, was unclear. A Turkish Foreign Ministry official said the pilot aborted an initial attempt to land because of heavy fog, then crashed on a second attempt. An Iraqi security official said it wasn’t known whether hostile fire or mechanical problems might have been involved.
The Moldovan Antonov-26 took off from the Turkish city of Adana.
The Foreign Ministry official said one Turk was severely injured but survived, and three were listed as missing. Adana’s governor said the plane was carrying 29 Turks, one American and a crew comprising one Russian, one Ukrainian and three Moldovans.
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