Kazakhstan plane crash: 12 killed as Bek Air flight crashes near Almaty airport

A plane carrying almost 100 people has crashed near Almaty airport in Kazakhstan, killing at least 12 and injuring more than 60.

Almaty airport said on Friday morning that survivors and emergency workers were on the scene in Almerek village, just beyond the end of the runway. Footage from the site, which was cordoned off, appeared to show the Fokker 100 plane had hit a building.

The plane, Bek Air flight number Z92100, was carrying 93 passengers and five crew. Emergency services searched through the rubble in the immediate aftermath of the crash. Some survivors managed to stumble from the wreckage.

Kazakhstan has declared a national day of mourning on Saturday for the victims of the crash. The government has promised a full investigation and declared safety inspections at all the country’s airlines. An official said the crash had been caused either by equipment failure or pilot error.

Among those killed was Dana Kruglova, a 35-year-old editor of the Informburo.kz website. In a post, the site said Kruglova had been travelling from Almaty to the capital, Nur-Sultan, to celebrate the New Year holiday with her parents.

“Dana Kruglova was a real journalist,” the site’s editor, Mikhail Dorofeyev, wrote. “Dana was honest, brave and objective at the same time. This is a terrible loss for all of us.”

A survivor told the news website Tengrinews she had heard a “terrifying sound” before the plane started losing altitude.

“The plane was flying with a tilt. Everything was like in a movie: screaming, shouting, people crying,” she said.

Another survivor, Aslan Nazaraliyev, a businessman, told the Vremya newspaper the plane had started shaking while gaining altitude about two minutes after takeoff.

“At some point we started falling, not vertically, but at an angle. It seemed like control over the plane was lost,” he said.

The president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, pledged to provide families of the victims with compensation and tweeted that those responsible “will be severely punished in accordance with the law”.

Tokayev also said a government commission had been set up to investigate the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.

The families of the victims were promised compensation of 4m tenge (£8,000).

While airline safety has been a concern in Kazakhstan, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) gave the country an award in October for “progress in resolving aviation security and oversight deficiencies”.

The country’s aviation service had done “comprehensive work in aviation security development”, the ICAO said.

Friday’s crash is Kazakhstan’s deadliest since 2013, when a Bombardier CRJ200 operated by SCAT Airlines crashed on approach to Almaty airport, killing all 21 people on board.

The country’s previous worst crash since independence came on Christmas Day 2012, when an Antonov An-72-100 run by the country’s military crashed near the city of Shymkent, killing 27 on board, including top members of the border guard service.

The Bek Air flight took off from Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, at 7.22am local time on Friday.

Kazakhstan’s civil aviation committee said the aircraft had “lost altitude during takeoff and broke through a concrete fence” before hitting a small building.

Almaty health authorities initially put the death toll at 15 or more but revised the figure down to 12.

The committee said 66 people had been taken to hospital. The Almaty mayor’s office said at least 22 of the injured were in critical condition. Officials called for blood donations to help the survivors.

A Reuters reporter travelling to the airport said there was thick fog in the area. Flightradar24 said that at the time of takeoff there was fog and the air temperature was -9C (15.8F), with very little wind.

Bek Air operates a fleet of Fokker 100 jets. The aviation committee said it was suspending all flights of that type of aircraft pending an investigation.

The government said the crashed plane was built in 1996 and its most recent flight certificate was issued in May 2019.

Kazakhstan’s interior ministry said it was investigating a possible breach of flight operations and safety rules.