A plane carrying nearly 100 passengers and crew on board crashed into a two-story building in Kazakhstan shortly after taking off Friday, killing at least 12 and injuring more than 54.
Officials said the Bek Air aircraft – identified as a Fokker-100, a medium-sized, twin-turbofan jet airliner – had just taken off from Almaty International Airport when it lost altitude at 7:22 a.m.
There were 98 passengers and crew aboard. At least 54 people were hospitalized with injuries, at least 10 of them were in critical condition.
In this handout photo provided by the Emergency Situations Ministry of the Republic of Kazakhstan, police and rescuers work on the site of a plane crash near Almaty International Airport, outside Almaty, Kazakhstan, Friday, Dec. 27, 2019. Almaty International Airport said a Bek Air plane crashed Friday in Kazakhstan shortly after takeoff causing numerous deaths. The aircraft had 100 passengers and crew onboard when hit a concrete fence and a two-story building shortly after takeoff. (Emergency Situations Ministry of the Republic of Kazakhstan photo via AP)
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The plane’s tail hit the runway twice during takeoff, indicating that it struggled to take off, Kazakhstan’s deputy prime minister Roman Skylar said.
On its way down, the plane hit a concrete fence and the two-story building.
In this photo provided by the Emergency Situations Ministry of the Republic of Kazakhstan, police and rescuers work on the side of a plane crashed near Almaty International Airport, outside Almaty, Kazakhstan, Friday, Dec. 27, 2019. Almaty International Airport said a Bek Air plane crashed Friday in Kazakhstan shortly after takeoff causing numerous deaths. (Emergency Situations Ministry of the Republic of Kazakhstan via AP)
In a statement on its Facebook page, the airport said there was no fire and a rescue operation got underway immediately after the crash.
Around 1,000 people were working at the snow-covered site of the crash.
Video footage showed the front of the broken-up fuselage rammed against a building and the rear of the plane lying in the field next to the airport.
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One survivor told reporters that the plane started shaking fewer than two minutes after takeoff.
Police stand guard as rescuers assist on the site of a plane crash near Almaty International Airport, outside Almaty, Kazakhstan, Friday, Dec. 27, 2019. Almaty International Airport said the Bek Air plane crashed Friday in Kazakhstan shortly after takeoff causing numerous deaths. The aircraft had 100 passengers and crew onboard when hit a concrete fence and a two-story building shortly after takeoff. (AP)
“At first the wing jolted really hard, then the right. The plane continued to gain altitude, shaking quite severely, and then went down,” Aslan Nazaraliyev said.
The plane was flying from Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city and former capital, to Nur-Sultan, the country’s capital formally known as Astana.
In Almaty, dozens of people lined up in front of a local blood bank to donate blood for the injured.
In this handout photo provided by the Emergency Situations Ministry of the Republic of Kazakhstan, police and rescuers work on the side of a plane crash near Almaty International Airport, outside Almaty, Kazakhstan, Friday, Dec. 27, 2019. Almaty International Airport said a Bek Air plane crashed Friday in Kazakhstan shortly after takeoff causing numerous deaths. The aircraft had 100 passengers and crew onboard when hit a concrete fence and a two-story building shortly after takeoff. (Emergency Situations Ministry of the Republic of Kazakhstan photo via AP)
Skylar said the cause of the crash was unclear, but an investigation is underway to look at whether pilot error or technical failure were factors.
“A commission... will establish whether this was pilot error or technical issues. The runway was in an ideal condition,” he said, according to Reuters.
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President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared Dec. 28 a national day of mourning.
Police stand guard as rescuers assist on the site of a plane crash near Almaty International Airport, outside Almaty, Kazakhstan, Friday, Dec. 27, 2019. Almaty International Airport said the Bek Air plane crashed Friday in Kazakhstan shortly after takeoff causing numerous deaths. The aircraft had 100 passengers and crew onboard when hit a concrete fence and a two-story building shortly after takeoff. (AP Photo/Vladimir Tretyakov)
Government officials said the plane underwent deicing before the flight, but Nazaraliyev recalled that the wings of the plane were covered in ice, and passengers who used emergency exits over the wings were slipping and falling down.
Local authorities had earlier put the death toll at 15, but the Interior Ministry later revised the figure downward.
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Police stand guard as rescuers assist on the site of a plane crashed near Almaty International Airport, outside Almaty, Kazakhstan, Friday, Dec. 27, 2019. The Kazakhstan plane with 98 people aboard crashed shortly after takeoff early Friday. (AP)
The plane was reported to be 23 years old and was most recently certified to operate in May. 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 were suspended pending the investigation of the crash, government officials said.
Fox News' Edmund DeMarche and the Associated Press contributed to this report