Reuters
January 13

A Soviet-built Yak-40 airliner crashed on Tuesday evening on approach to the Uzbek capital Tashkent, airport officials said, and body parts were scattered over a wide area near the city's airport.

There was no immediate word on the number of people aboard the aircraft, the number of casualties or the cause of the crash.

A Reuters correspondent saw emergency workers carrying body parts away from the scene in large bags several hours after the plane crashed at about 8pm.

Light fog covered the area, but officials said visibility was acceptable for flying.

Police cordons restricted access to the site and officials at the scene gave no information.

Local news reports said the plane belonged to the national airline, Uzbekistan Airways, and had been on an internal flight from Termez on the Afghan border. The airline said a flight from Termez was scheduled to land at Tashkent at the time of the crash.

The Yak-40, which normally carries up to 32 passengers, is commonly used on short runs in former Soviet republics, but is also often used as an executive jet.

There has been considerable concern about the safety of Soviet-built aircraft, though standards of maintenance have improved since the early post-communist years.

In the most serious crash involving a Soviet-built aircraft in recent months 276 people, mostly Iranian servicemen, died aboard an Ilyushin-76 that came down in February 2003 on a mountain in south-eastern Iran.

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