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A technical problem caused the crash of a plane in Azerbaijan, which killed 23 people including eight foreigners, officials said Saturday.
The Antonov An-140 aircraft, bound for the Kazakh city of Aktau, disappeared from radar screens soon after take-off from the Azeri capital Baku on Friday night.
Ilham Amirov, a representative of the flight safety department for national flagship carrier AZAL, said the plane crashed because of a technical problem.
The wreckage of the plane, which carried 18 passengers and five crew, was found on the sea shore near Nardaran on the outskirts of Baku.
Amirov said the airline would have more precise information once it had found the black box, located in the tail end of the plane. The tail end is in the sea and AZAL would start looking for it Sunday.
Azerbaijan, situated on the Caspian Sea, is a former Soviet republic with a thriving oil and gas industry.