A Azerbaijani A plane with 67 people on board crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau on Wednesday, killing 38 people and leaving 29 survivors, a Kazakh official said.
Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbaev announced the figures at a meeting with Azerbaijani officials, Russian news agency Interfax reported.
The Embraer 190 was en route from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus when it diverted and attempted an emergency landing three kilometers (1.8 miles) from Aktau, Azerbaijan Airlines said.
At a news conference, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said it was too early to speculate about the reasons for the crash, but said weather forced the plane to deviate from its planned course.
“The information provided to me says that due to deteriorating weather conditions, the plane changed course between Baku and Grozny and flew to Aktau airport, where it crashed upon landing,” he said.
Russia’s civil aviation agency Rosaviatsia said preliminary information showed the pilots were diverted to Aktau after a bird strike led to an emergency on board.
The wreckage of the Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 lies on the ground near Aktau Airport, Kazakhstan, on Wednesday, December 25, 2024.
AP Photo/Azamat Sarsenbayev
According to Kazakh officials, there were 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhs and three Kyrgyz nationals on board the plane. The Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office had previously said that 32 of the 67 people on board survived the crash, but told journalists that the number was not yet final. The Associated Press could not immediately reconcile the difference between survivor numbers given by Kazakh and Azerbaijani officials.
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Cell phone footage shared online appeared to show the plane making a steep descent before hitting the ground in a fireball. Other footage showed part of the fuselage being torn away from the wings and the rest of the plane lying upside down in the grass. The footage matched the aircraft’s colors and its registration number.
Some of the videos posted on social media showed survivors dragging fellow passengers away from the rubble.
Flight tracking data from FlightRadar24.com showed that as the plane approached the airport in Aktau, it appeared to make a right turn and its altitude fluctuated significantly up and down in the final minutes of the flight before hitting the ground.
FlightRadar24 said separately in an online post that the plane had experienced “severe GPS interference” that “caused the aircraft to transmit poor ADS-B data,” referring to the information it flight tracked -Websites allow you to track aircraft in flight. Russia has been accused in the past of jamming GPS transmissions across the region.
In this photo taken from a video released by the Mangystau Region administration, the wreckage of the Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 lies on the ground near Aktau airport, Kazakhstan, on Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024.
The administration of the Mangystau region via AP
Azerbaijan Airlines said it would keep the public informed and changed its social media banners to solid black. It also said it would suspend flights between Baku and Grozny and between Baku and the city of Makhachkala in Russia’s North Caucasus until the investigation into the crash was completed.
Azerbaijan’s state news agency Azertac said an official delegation of Azerbaijan’s emergency minister, deputy prosecutor general and vice president of Azerbaijan Airlines was sent to Aktau to conduct an “on-site investigation.”
Aliyev, who was traveling to Russia, returned to Azerbaijan when he learned of the crash, the presidential press service said. He was scheduled to attend an informal meeting in St. Petersburg of the leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a bloc of former Soviet states formed after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Aliyev expressed his condolences to the victims’ families in a statement on social media. “It is with deep sadness that I express my condolences to the families of the victims and wish those injured a speedy recovery,” he wrote.
He also signed a decree declaring December 26 a day of mourning in Azerbaijan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to Aliyev by phone and expressed his condolences, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
At the CIS meeting in St. Petersburg, Putin also said that the Russian Emergencies Ministry had sent a plane with equipment and medical personnel to Kazakhstan to help with the aftermath of the crash.
Kazakh, Azerbaijani and Russian authorities said they were investigating the crash. Embraer told The Associated Press in a statement that the company “stands ready to assist all relevant authorities.”
Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Aida Sultanova in London contributed to this report.
&Copy 2024 The Canadian Press
