ATHENS, July 17 (Xinhua) -- Greek authorities are on alert after a Ukrainian cargo airplane crashed near Kavala city in northern Greece on Saturday evening, which killed all eight crew members on board.
Residents of nearby communities were asked to stay indoors, according to an e-mailed press release from the Ministry for Climate Crisis and Civil Protection.
Disaster personnel will search the crash site for dangerous wreckage, Greek national broadcaster ERT reported.
Earlier, Greece's General Secretariat of Civil Protection advised residents to close their windows and doors due to toxic fumes after the aircraft crashed.
The Antonov An-12 plane had departed from Nis, Serbia, and was on route to Jordan and then Riyadh with the final destination of Bangladesh, carrying around 11 tons of weapons, particularly landmines, Serbia's Defence Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said at a news conference on Sunday.
The minister said that eight crew members on board, all Ukrainian nationals, were killed.
A local prosecutor has launched an investigation into the circumstances of the accident, according to ERT.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko confirmed the crash on Sunday, saying that the preliminary investigation found a failure in one of the plane's engines, which likely caused the crash.
The aircraft's pilot had requested permission for an emergency landing and notified Greek authorities of a failure in one of the engines, according to the report.
An unidentified white substance on the site irritated the eyes and mouth of firefighters. Two of them have been transferred to a local hospital with respiratory problems, Marios Apostolidis, a fire service officer, told ERT.
Eyewitnesses saw a plane engulfed in flames crash into a corn field some 500 meters away from a residential area, according to the reports. Explosions followed.
Electricity supplies in communities near the crash site were briefly interrupted as the plane damaged cables before crashing.
Kiev has set up an operational headquarters at the Consulate of Ukraine in the second largest Greek city of Thessaloniki after the accident, spokesman Nikolenko said, adding that representatives of the Ukrainian consulate have already arrived at the crash site. ■
