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Air crash kills all 75 on board
http://www.sina.com.cn 2003/05/27 11:19  Shanghai Daily

  An airplane carrying Spanish peacekeepers back from a tour of duty in Afghanistan crashed into a lush mountain slope in northeastern Turkey and exploded into flames yesterday, killing all 75 people aboard in Spain's worst military accident.

  The Russian-made YAK-42D was flying from Kabul, Afghanistan, to Zaragoza, Spain, with a refueling stop in the Black Sea port of Trabzon. The plane went in to land in Trabzon but was too high, and turned toward nearby fog-shrouded mountains where it crashed, about 760 kilometers northeast of the Turkish capital, Ankara.

  The airplane, which belonged to a company named Ukrainian-Mediterranean Airlines, carried 62 Spanish peacekeepers, 12 Ukrainian crew members and a Belarusian flight manager, all of whom were killed.

  The plane apparently carried ammunition, and burst into flames and exploded upon impact. Turkish soldiers saw unexploded hand grenades among the wreckage and evacuated the rescue site, fearing further explosions, CNN-Turk television reported.

  "I had to wait 15 to 20 minutes for the explosions to end before I could get near to it," witness Sait Topcu told CNN-Turk.

  The cause of the pre-dawn accident was not clear. Radio contact between the tower and the pilot was cut off soon before the crash, and Turkish aviation officials speculated that there may have been a technical malfunction.

  Spain's Defense Ministry said the "cause of the accident from our first impressions was the thick fog in the area. The plane was trying to land because of heavy turbulence caused by bad weather conditions."

  A huge pile of twisted and burnt metal covered a wide area around the crash site. Reporters at the scene said diaries of soldiers, family pictures, music CDs and a half-burned camera were scattered among the debris.

  "This is an appalling tragedy, given that these soldiers were serving the interest of peace in a difficult mission in Afghanistan," said NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson, during a visit to Czech Republic yesterday.

  Turkish soldiers had retrieved 46 bodies from the wreckage so far, the Anatolia news agency reported. The soldiers were combing the mountainous area and nearby pine forest, looking for body parts and the black box flight recorder of the plane.

  "It will be very difficult to identify them," said Governor Aslan Yildirim of Trabzon. "Most bodies are in pieces or dismembered."

  Aviation and medical experts from Spain's Defense Ministry were heading to Turkey to help in the investigation.

  The Spanish peacekeepers had just finished a four-month tour of duty, with many working at Kabul's airport. They were the first deaths among Spanish troops in the 17 months they have been involved in the Afghan peacekeeping mission, according to Spanish news reports.




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