Azerbaijani passenger plane missing

An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane with 18 people on board went missing after takeoff from the airport in the capital Baku tonight, an airport dispatcher said.

There was no information on whether the plane had crashed, but he confirmed that it had disappeared from radar.

The ITAR-Tass news agency reported that the An-140 plane went missing while flying between Baku and the Kazakh city of Aktau.

Baku and Aktau are centres of the thriving Caspian Sea oil industry, which has attracted substantial foreign investment.