Turkish Cargo Plane Crashes

This occurred last night while I was sleeping. It's important we don't weigh in on speculation while allowing the accident investigation to take its course. Reports are still coming in about the initial details but according to a New York Times article:

HONG KONG — A Turkish cargo plane approaching the airport in Kyrgyzstan’s capital crashed early Monday, killing at least 37 people, most of them on the ground, according to the Kyrgyz government. The Boeing 747, with a crew of four, was owned by ACT Airlines, and it was on its way to Istanbul from Hong Kong with a stopover in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, according to airport officials in the Central Asian city.

The plane was approaching Manas International Airport in Bishkek when it crashed into a village adjoining the airport. Kyrgyz officials said that 23 of the village’s 43 houses were destroyed, and some buildings burst into flames. There was fog at the time, but it was not clear if the weather played a role in the crash.
The Kyrgyz Emergencies Ministry said that at least 12 people had been taken to the hospital.
An image on the website of the television station owned by Kyrgyzstan’s government showed a large section of the nose of the aircraft, including the cockpit windows, on the ground after the plane apparently crashed through a building. Wreckage was strewed across a wide area.
A video of the crash scene showed emergency workers in a snow-covered neighborhood, with pieces of the plane interspersed among houses and wreckage in flames. Tents were set up to help shelter displaced residents from temperatures of about 13 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 11 Celsius).

300 Miles

Lake Balkash

KAZAKHSTAN

Bishkek

KYRGYZSTAN

UZBEKISTAN

TAJIKISTAN

CHINA

TURKMENISTAN

AFGHANISTAN

PAKISTAN

INDIABy The New York Times 

Kyrgyz officials said they would create a government commission to investigate why the plane came down. The plane, built in 2003, was owned by ACT Airlines, a Turkish company that is 49 percent owned by the Chinese conglomerate HNA Group, which has aviation, tourism and logistics units. ACT operates under the name MyCargo Airlines.

The airline said on Monday that the crash was not the result of “technical reasons or factors linked to the freight” on the plane, according to The Associated Press. The news agency, citing the airline, said that the aircraft’s crew of four — two pilots, a freight specialist and a flight technician — were all killed in the crash. The Manas airport was the site of a United States military base that was used mainly to support operations in Afghanistan until 2014, when the base was handed over to the Kyrgyz military.

Again, there's always speculation that follows the loss of an aircraft but it's my duty as someone who has followed accident investigations for over the past decade to remind the reader that Boeing is providing all available resources to the investigation and it is in everyone's best interest to allow the investigation to run its course.

"The point is that being able to demonstrate ‘due diligence’ is not about having a thing (a policy or a system or a heap of procedures and checklists) it is about doing a thing" - Max Geyer