18 Passengers, Five Crew Reportedly Onboard

All persons aboard an Azerbaijan Airlines Antonov 140 twin turboprop (file photo of type, right) are feared dead after the aircraft went down near the village of Kyurdakhany, along the Caspian Sea coast.

Preliminary reports indicate 18 passengers and five crewmembers may have been onboard the flight from the Azeri capital of Baku to Aktau in Kasakhstan, across the Caspian Sea. However, Russia's ITAR-Tass news service was reporting as many as 60 were onboard.

Russia's Ria news agency said the aircraft had taken off from the Baku about 20 minutes before it disappeared from radar screens. The statement was cited by the BBC.

Further details on the accident, including possible causes, were not immediately known.

The accident occurred almost three years to the day after an "Iran-140" -- a licensed Iranian clone of the Antonov plane -- went down near the village of Aliabad, near Iran's second-largest city of Isfahan. As was reported in Aero-News, all 46 people onboard that flight died.

The regional airliner, which first flew in 1997, has a typical passenger capacity of 52 passengers, with two crew.

FMI: www.aeronautics.ru/archive/vvs/an140-01.htm