People board a Bek Air flight in Kazakhstan on February 21, 2018. — KYODO/VNA Photo

MOSCOW — A commercial airplane carrying 95 passengers and five crew members crashed near Almaty in Kazakhstan on Friday, with nine deaths confirmed by the country's ministry of internal affairs.

The Central Asian country's emergencies committee said that 100 people were on board the Bek Air plane, including five staff.

Nine people, six of them children, were injured, according to the committee.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev pledged to provide families of the victims with compensation and tweeted that those responsible "will be severely punished in accordance with the law." Tokayev also said that a government commission had been set up to investigate the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.

Unable to maintain its flight altitude, the Bek Air plane crashed shortly after takeoff in the morning into a two-story building. It was en route to the capital city of Nur-Sultan. — AFP/KYODO