A military transport plane crashed in southern Kazakhstan on Tuesday, killing all 27 people on board, including the country's acting border service chief. The Russian-made An-72 crashed at about 7 p.m. local time (8 a.m. ET) about 12 miles away from the city of Shymkent near the border with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan's Committee for National Security said in a statement. "The plane has burned up, only some of its fragments remain," the RIA news agency quoted the head of the regional emergencies department as saying. Without specifying further details, authorities said an investigation was opened into the crash. No cause was given, but southern Kazakhstan over recent weeks has been buffeted by winds, heavy snows and low temperatures, causing widespread flight delays.
