Search in Kyrgyzstan for crew of crashed U.S. plane to resume on May 4
BISHKEK. May 3 (Interfax) - A source in the Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Ministry has argued that the missing crew of the U.S. refueling aircraft that crashed in Kyrgyzstan on Friday had little chance of surviving as the plane suddenly caught fire and exploded in the air.
"The three crewmembers who were aboard the [Boeing] KC-135 aircraft of the U.S. Air Force might have been killed during the crash of the aircraft," the source told Interfax.
He said no human remains had been found on the crash site and that the search for the crew had been suspended for the night but would resume on Saturday morning.
The Kyrgyz Health Ministry also said no human remains had been found on the crash site.
The KC-135 was based at the U.S. Transit Center at the Manas international airport of Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.
A Manas airport source told Interfax the crew "wouldn't have been able to eject during the fire as this type of aircraft isn't fitted with that kind of equipment." The source expressed suspicion that the crew had been killed by the explosion or in the fire.
The tanker crashed in the mountains near the village of Chaldovar, close to the border with Kazakhstan.
It took off from Manas at 2:30 p.m. (0830 GMT), and vanished off the radar between 20 and 30 minutes later. All contact with it was lost. Initial investigations suggest that the plane caught fire at an altitude of about 6,000 meters, exploded and fell. It is believed the tanker might have been carrying several dozen tonnes of fuel.
Reports said the plane had fallen into three large pieces while still in the air, and that wreckage was scattered within a radius of 2 to 3 kilometers.