Azerbaijan, Baku, July 6 / Trend S.Aliyev /
The Azerbaijani Civil Aviation Administration (ACAA) has created a special commission to investigate causes of the Azerbaijani aircraft crash, Advisor to the Silk Way Airlines Director Adil Gasimov, who also entered the special commission, told Trend. The aircraft which crashed in Afghanistan on Tuesday night was owned by the Azerbaijani Silk Way Airline.
He said the commission comprising representatives of the ACAA and Silk Way will soon leave for to Afghanistan to investigate the incident on the spot.
The names of those who perished in the plane crash are:
1. Pilot Sergey Kuzmin (42)
2. Second pilot Oleg Marshihin (32)
3. Navigator Igor Chzhen (45)
4. Flight Engineer Vladimir Shatobin (42)
5. Airborne radio operator Ahmedjan Hajayev (56)
6. Flight operator Elnur Mahmudov (30)
7. Flight operator Tapdig Gahramanov (47)
8. Aeromechanic Afghan Rahimov (31)
9. Aeromechanic Mehman Huseynov (49)
Four members of the nine-person crew on the "Azerbaijan Airlines" cargo aircraft which crashed in Afghanistan were Azerbaijani citizens, Ambassador to Pakistan and Afghanistan Dashgin Shikarov told Trend . He said the other victims are the Uzbek citizens.
All crew members of the "Azerbaijan Airlines" cargo aircraft were killed. The aircraft crashed outside the Aksa village on Tuesday in the Parwan province, Governor Abdulhalim Mojaddadi told Trend.
He said the cargo aircraft of the Azerbaijani cargo airline Silk Way crashed into a mountain not far from the Aksa village at 11:00 pm [local time].
He added that a special group consisting of police officers and local authorities has already begun investigating this case. He said he is aware of presence of 8 people on board.
Mojaddadi denies information of Taliban's shooting down the aircraft.
A cargo aircraft of "Azerbaijan Airlines" was not a NATO plane, but was contracted by the International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF), ISAF Spokesperson Mayor Tim James told Trend.
The Afghan Airspace Control Service reported that connection with the cargo plane Silk Way was lost at 00:10 (2:10 Baku time) on July 6 not far from Bagram airport, when the plane disappeared from radar. At the same time the dispatcher managing the aircraft notified that a flash occurred approximately 25 km from the Kabul airport at an altitude of 4 km.
It is assumed that the plane may have encountered an unknown object in the air, as information about an emergency situation was not reported by the flight crew until the connection was lost.
A total of 18 tons of cargo was on board the plane en route from Baku to Bagram. The plane picked up its cargo at the Baku Heydar Aliyev International Airport and took off at 21:26 (local time).
Representative of the Taliban movement Zabibulla Mojahid told the Afghan media that Taliban has shot down the Azerbaijani cargo plane, the FARS news agency reported.