10 e USA fighting plane down

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10.0°E 12507,H,2865 QPSK CIHAN VIDEO FEED (CIHAN HABER AJANSI) 4:2:0

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10.0°E 12507,H,2865 QPSK CIHAN VIDEO FEED (CIHAN HABER AJANSI) 4:2:0

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BBC said:

A US military refuelling plane has crashed in northern Kyrgyzstan.

The US transit centre at Manas airport confirmed the KC-135 Stratotanker had come down. The status of its crew and cause of the crash were not known.

The plane disappeared off the radar near the village of Chaldovar, some 160km (100 miles) west of Manas and close to the border with Kazakhstan.

Witnesses said they saw an explosion and heard a boom, and that wreckage was scattered across a wide area.

"I was working with my father in the field, and I heard an explosion. When I looked up at the sky I saw the fire. When it was falling, the plane split into three pieces," resident Sherikbek Turusbekov was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

One local news agency, 24.kg, quoted witnesses as saying the plane had hit a high-voltage power transmission line before it crashed, and quoted a local official as saying the pilots had ejected from the plane. Neither report has been confirmed.

The wreckage is reported to be scattered across a wide area of mountainous terrain, which is hampering the rescue effort and investigation.

"Emergency services are on scene. The status of the crew is unknown," the US transit centre said in a statement. It did not specify how many people were on board, but the KC-135 is thought to carry around three crew members.

It is not clear where the plane was heading but the transit centre at Manas International Airport outside Bishkek is used by the US military to maintain its operations in Afghanistan.

Seven crew members died when a US civilian Boeing 747 cargo plane crashed at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan on Monday.