AFP, ASHGABAT: Officials in Turkmenistan on Wednesday rejected a British defence ministry announcement that a British military transport plane had collided with another aircraft in the Central Asian country's airspace.
“We would know if there was such an incident and we've received no such information,” a spokesman for Turkmenistan's civil defence service told AFP.
The denial was echoed by a spokesman for the national flag carrier Turkmen Airlines.
“Nothing like that has happened in our territory,” the Turkmen Airlines spokesman said.
Earlier on Wednesday a British defence ministry spokeswoman said that a Royal Air Force C-130J Hercules had survived a mid-air collision in Turkmenistan, landing safely in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, across the Caspian Sea from Turkmenistan.
The Hercules was on a flight from Kabul to Bucharest on Saturday when it collided with an “unidentified foreign aircraft”, a ministry spokeswoman in London told AFP.
None of its crew were hurt, the spokeswoman said.
The Hercules was based at RAF Lyneham, in Wiltshire, in the west of England.
The hardline leadership of Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov has generally kept a tight lid on any information it sees as reflecting badly on the country.
