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Fate of crew unknown as US plane crashes in Kyrgyzstan | |
(about 5 hours later) | |
A US military refuelling plane has crashed in northern Kyrgyzstan. | |
The US transit centre at Manas airport confirmed the KC-135 Stratotanker had come down. The status of its crew and cause of the crash were not known. | |
The plane disappeared off the radar near the village of Chaldovar, some 160km (100 miles) west of Manas and close to the border with Kazakhstan. | |
Witnesses said they saw an explosion and heard a boom, and that wreckage was scattered across a wide area. | |
"I was working with my father in the field, and I heard an explosion. When I looked up at the sky I saw the fire. When it was falling, the plane split into three pieces," resident Sherikbek Turusbekov was quoted by the Associated Press as saying. | |
One local news agency, 24.kg, quoted witnesses as saying the plane had hit a high-voltage power transmission line before it crashed, and quoted a local official as saying the pilots had ejected from the plane. Neither report has been confirmed. | |
The wreckage is reported to be scattered across a wide area of mountainous terrain, which is hampering the rescue effort and investigation. | |
"Emergency services are on scene. The status of the crew is unknown," the US transit centre said in a statement. It did not specify how many people were on board, but the KC-135 is thought to carry around three crew members. | |
It is not clear where the plane was heading but the transit centre at Manas International Airport outside Bishkek is used by the US military to maintain its operations in Afghanistan. | |
Seven crew members died when a US civilian Boeing 747 cargo plane crashed at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan on Monday. |