Azerbaijani aviation officials said technical failure was the likely cause of a crash in which 23 people were killed when their aircraft plunged into the Caspian Sea. “After a preliminary investigation we are leaning toward a version of events under which the accident happened for technical reasons,” Ilham Amirov, deputy general director of AZAL, the flight’s state-owned carrier, told AFP. “The pilots lost control of the aircraft,” Amirov said, adding that divers were searching for the aircraft’s tale section in which its ‘black box’ flight record machine is believed to be. The plane, a Ukrainian-made Antonov An-140, fell into the sea shortly after taking off from Baku en route to the oil town of Aktau in Kazakhstan, AZAL said. Full Story