Plane with Spain troops crashes in Turkey ANKARA, Turkey (AP) =97 An airplane carrying Spanish peacekeepers crashed=20 into a mountain in northeastern Turkey on Monday while on its third attempt= =20 to land in thick fog. All 74 people aboard were killed, officials=20 said. The plane was flying from Kabul, Afghanistan, to Zaragoza, Spain,=20 with a refueling stop in the Black Sea port of Trabzon, the Spanish Defense= =20 Ministry said. Turkey's Transportation Ministry said the plane had also=20 made a stopover in Bishkek, Krygyzstan. The Russian made YAK-42 hit a mountain slope near the town of Macka, 30=20 miles south of Trabzon, according to Turkish officials who spoke on=20 condition of anonymity. The plane apparently went down in heavy fog at Trabzon airport, Gov. Aslan= =20 Yildirim of Trabzon told the private CNN-Turk television station. He said=20 the pilot reported not being able to see the runway in the first two=20 attempts, and the plane disappeared from radar screens at 4:45 a.m. The=20 airplane, which belonged to the Ukrainian company of Sredizemnomorske,=20 carried 62 passengers =97 all Spanish peacekeeping forces =97 and 12 crew=20 members, the Turkish officials said, who said all were killed. The dead on= =20 the plane included 41 army soldiers and 21 air force personnel, the Spanish= =20 Defense Ministry said. The plane, which apparently carried ammunition=20 belonging to the Spanish soldiers, burst into flames and exploded upon=20 impact. Turkish soldiers saw unexploded hand grenades among the wreckage=20 and evacuated the rescue site, fearing further explosions, CNN-Turk= reported. The Transportation Ministry said the radio contact between the tower and=20 the pilot was cut off soon before the news of the crash reached the=20 authorities. Turkish soldiers retrieved more than 30 charred bodies from=20 the wreckage, said Deputy Gov. Nihat Nalbant of Trabzon. Nalbant denied=20 reports that the plane's black box flight recorder was found. If found, the= =20 flight recorder could indicate whether there were any failures in the=20 aircraft's operations or its systems. "It will be very difficult to=20 identify them," Yildirim said. "Most bodies are in pieces or=20 dismembered." Television footage showed a huge pile of twisted and burned= =20 metal covering a wide area. Reporters at the scene said diaries of=20 soldiers, family pictures, music CDs and a half-burned camera were=20 scattered among the debris. One witness, Sait Topcu, told CNN-Turk the plane was exploding in flames=20 when he reached the site. "I had to wait 15-20 minutes for the explosions= =20 to end before I could get near to it," Topcu said. The army troops were=20 from an engineering regiment and had just finished a 4-month tour of duty,= =20 the Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported. It said until now, there had been= =20 no deaths among Spanish troops in the 17 months they had been involved in=20 the Afghan peacekeeping mission. "Our thoughts are with our comrades who=20 were traveling to Spain, and our hearts go out to their families and=20 friends," said the acting peacekeeper commander, Brig. Gen. Robert= Bertholee. The engineers had recently been working on a road to Kabul's airport that=20 would allow heavy fuel trucks easier access to the terminals, a spokesman=20 for the Defense Ministry in Madrid said. The Spanish air force had also=20 been working at Kabul's airport. Spain's King Juan Carlos was being=20 briefed by top military officials on the accident. U.S.-led coalition=20 forces stormed into Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 after the Sept. 11=20 attacks, ousting Afghanistan's ruling Taliban military government and the=20 terrorists it harbored, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. The United=20 States remains the largest coalition force in Afghanistan, with about 8,500= =20 soldiers stationed there hunting down Taliban and al-Qaeda=20 remnants. Separately, about 5,000 peacekeepers have been in Kabul since=20 December 2001 to help control the war-shattered capital. Germany and the=20 Netherlands took command of the international contingent, called the=20 International Security Assistance Force, in February, taking over from=20 Turkey. Spain contributes 120 soldiers to the International Security=20 Assistance Force in Kabul. Most of these are engineers who work in=20 construction and explosive ordnance disposal. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Mas Site: www.tntisland.com/tntrecords/mas2003/ Site of the Week: http://www.caribbeanfloral.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************