Infant is among 57 fatalities in air crash

AN ATLASJET plane crashed on a rocky mountain shortly before it was due to land in southwest Turkey yesterday, killing all 57 people on board, including a six-week-old baby going to see her grandparents for the first time.

The MD-83, carrying 50 passengers and seven crew members, took off from Istanbul at about 1am for the one-hour flight to Isparta province, but it went off the radar just before landing at the airport.

A rescue helicopter reached the plane’s wreckage near the village of Yesilyurt at 7am and reported no survivors, said Tuncay Doganer, the airline’s chief executive.