Epress.am News from Armenia
Fragments of an Azerbaijani cargo plane that crashed in Afghanistan last night have been found in the Afghani province of Parwan, 50 km north of the capital Kabul, reports News.az.
Body parts have also been found along with the fragments near the settlement of Siah Gerd, Russian news agency RIA-Novosti reports.
According to the South Caucasus military news portal Milaz.info (citing Azerbaijan’s State Civil Aviation Administration), air traffic control lost communication with IL-76 4K-AZ 55 belonging to Azerbaijan’s Silk Way aviation company as it was preparing to land at Bagram airport on Jul. 6 at 2:10 am Baku time and it disappeared from the radar screens. At the same time, the control tower in Kabul airport said that it saw a flicker at a height of 4 km and at a distance of 25 km.
Until the communication cut, no information about any disorder or accident conditions was received by the crew team, that is why it is supposed that the aircraft collided with an unknown object.
The plane carrying out the Baku-Bagram flight with 18 tons of cargo took off from Heydar Aliyev International Airport at 9:26 pm local time on Jul. 5. Before this flight, the plane flew the Kuwait-Baku route and no disorder was recorded during this flight.
There were 9 crew members on board including captain Kuzmin Sergei Viktorovich. There are no survivors.
İl-76 4K-AZ 55 aircraft was built in 2005 and all its technical inspections were up to date.
Azerbaijan’s State Civil Aviation Administration has created a special commission to investigate the cause of the plane crash and it is expected that experts will fly to the site after reaching an agreement with Afghanistan’s leadership. More detailed information on the incident will be made public after the investigations.
Note, Azerbaijani airline companies are transporting goods as part of the country’s humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.