On September 26, about 70 passengers and crew on the Kyrgyz Airlines Tu-154 jet had a lucky escape as the plane, bound for Moscow, made an emergency landing after hitting the American tanker, a Hercules, at the Manas Airport, which hosts a U.S. airbase.
Referring to experts of the Interstate Aviation Committee, a civil aviation body of former Soviet republics, a Kyrgyz government commission concluded that responsibility for the incident rests with the crew of the American plane.
Alik Askarov, head of the Kyrgyz civil aviation department, said at a press conference that the Hercules stopped and turned off its aeronautical and flashing lights for 45 seconds after landing without being instructed to do so by the traffic controllers.
"The crew did not report its location even after the traffic controller's inquiry, who thought the aircraft was moving down the taxiway at the time," the official said.
The jet, a presidential carrier occasionally used for regular flights, lost almost one-third of a wing on takeoff. The crew managed to continue flying without the right-wing ailerons, turn the aircraft, which was losing fuel, and land.
The U.S. aircraft was set ablaze, but its crew escaped unhurt.
Natalya Smolenskaya from Kyrgyz Airlines said this was the only Tu-154 that the company operated, and that the crew has been left off without wages for two months.
It was also announced at the press conference that the U.S. air base, which opened at Manas in 2001 to aid the U.S.-led anti-terrorism campaign in Afghanistan, owes $15 million to air traffic controllers and has ignored payment claims for five years.
