Officials say 14 killed, 35 hurt in Kazakhstan plane crash

Police guard as rescuers work on the side of a plane crashed near Almaty International Airport, outside Almaty, Kazakhstan, Friday, Dec. 27, 2019. The Kazakhstan plane with 100 people aboard crashed shortly after takeoff early Friday. (AP Photo/Vladimir Tretyakov)

MOSCOW — A Kazakhstan plane with 98 people aboard crashed shortly after takeoff early Friday, killing at least 14 people, officials in Almaty said. At least 35 others survived with injuries, 22 of them in critical condition.

The Bek Air aircraft hit a concrete fence and a two-story building after takeoff from Almaty International Airport. It said the plane lost attitude at 7:22 a.m.

In a statement on its Facebook page, the airport said there was no fire and a rescue operation got underway immediately following the crash.

The plane was flying to Nur-Sultan, the country’s capital formerly known as Astana.

The aircraft was identified as a Fokker-100, a medium-sized, twin-turbofan jet airliner. The company manufacturing the aircraft went bankrupt in 1996 and the production of the Fokker-100 stopped the following year.

All Bek Air and Fokker-100 flights in Kazakhstan have been suspended pending the investigation of the crash, the country’s authorities said.