Soyuz rocket fails mid-air, ISS crew safe

Baikonur, Kazakhstan: Booster rockets carrying a Soyuz spacecraft with a Russian and a US astronaut on board headed for the International Space Station have failed mid-air, forcing the crew to make an emergency landing, Russian news agencies report.

Agencies cited sources as saying that the crew was safe and was making an emergency landing in Kazakhstan where Thursday's unsuccessful launch took place.

The rocket was carrying US astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin. Footage from inside the Soyuz showed the two men being shaken around at the moment the failure occurred, with their arms and legs flailing.

The rocket was launched from the Soviet-era cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

A Reuters reporter who observed the launch from around a kilometre away said it had gone smoothly in its initial stages and that the failure of the booster rockets must have occurred at higher altitude.