22 Killed As Plane Crashes In Kazakhstan; Bad Weather Blamed

The Canadian-built Bombardier Challenger CRJ-200 belonging to a private Kazakh airline -- SCAT -- was headed to Almaty in the southeast from Kokshetau in the northern part of the country. The plane crashed in thick fog near the village of Kyzyl Tu, said Maulen Mukashev, the deputy mayor of Almaty, according to media reports.

Twenty two people, including the crew, were onboard the plane and all of them were believed to be killed in the crash, the airlines said in a statement.

"Twenty people were on board -- five crew members and 15 passengers," the airline said in a statement quoted by the Interfax news agency. "According to preliminary information, there are no survivors."

Almaty and the surrounding areas reportedly had a thick cover of fog Tuesday morning.  

"There was no fire, no explosion. The plane just plunged to the earth," Yuri Ilyin, deputy head of the city's emergencies department, told Reuters.

"The preliminary cause of the accident is bad weather," Mukashev said. "Not a single part of the plane was left intact after it came down."  

This is the second plane crash in the country in just over a month’s period. On Dec. 25, a military airplane crash killed 27 people in the southern Kazakh city of Shymkent.

The General Prosecutor's Office of Kazakhstan has initiated a criminal case on the incident, according to the press service of the Prosecutor's Office.