20 Believed Dead in Kazakh Air Crash

Kazakhstan

A Kazakh airline says 20 people on board a plane that crashed near the city of Almaty are presumed dead.

The SCAT airline said Tuesday one of its planes, carrying 15 passengers and five crew members, crashed in bad weather near the end of its journey from the northern city of Kokshetau to Almaty. It said that according to preliminary information, there are no survivors.

This is the second major air crash in the former Soviet republic in the past month. In late December, a military transport plane crashed near the southern city of Shymkent, killing all 27 people aboard.