There are 32 survivors of the Azerbaijan Airlines flight with 67 people on board near the city of Akhtau in western Kazakhstan, regional medical authorities announced today.
The plane, an Embraer 190, was flying between Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, and Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, according to Azerbaijan Airlines.
The plane crashed near the city of Akhtau, a Caspian Sea port in western Kazakhstan, the Emergencies Ministry of Kazakhstan said.
In videos published by Russian media, the plane’s fall and a huge fire immediately erupting are recorded.
Other shots show the aircraft on the ground, part of it burnt out, with its front end completely destroyed.
Injured passengers can be seen walking with difficulty from a section of the fuselage that remained intact.
After the crash, “the aircraft was engulfed in flames”, reports the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Kazakhstan, clarifying that 150 rescuers are working at the crash site.
“According to information available to us, 32 people survived” the crash, Azerbaijan’s general prosecutor’s office announced.
“We cannot disclose the results of the investigation at this time. All scenarios are being considered…” the same announcement underlines, while adding that a team of researchers from Azerbaijan has traveled to Kazakhstan and is “working on the scene”.
According to Azerbaijan Airlines, 62 passengers and five crew members were on board the aircraft, which “made an emergency landing” about 3 kilometers from Ahtau.
“Based on initial information, there were 37 Azerbaijani nationals, six Kazakh nationals, three Kyrgyz nationals and 16 Russian nationals,” Kazakhstan’s transport ministry confirmed.
Another video showing the crash of Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243
— BNO News Live (@BNODesk)
Data from Flightradar24, a website tracking aircraft movements, shows how an Azerbaijan Airlines flight carrying 62 passengers and five crew members crashed near the Kazakh Caspian city of Aktau
— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency)
The President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, who arrived in Russia today to participate in the Summit of the leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States, near St. Petersburg (northwest) together with Vladimir Putin, decided to interrupt his visit and return urgently to Azerbaijan , according to the press office of his presidency Azerbaijan.
“I express my condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in this crash (…) and wish a speedy recovery to the injured,” Aliyev said in a message on social media.
For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to Ilham Aliyev over the accident, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“Unfortunately, the president of Azerbaijan Aliyev had to leave St. Petersburg (where we had a meeting). “Putin already called him and expressed his condolences regarding the crash of the Azerbaijani airliner in Aktau,” Peskov said.
“We sympathize with those who lost their relatives and friends in this crash and wish a speedy recovery to all survivors.”
The leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, expressed his “condolences” to the families of the victims on Telegram and pointed out that he “prays for the recovery” of the injured.
The cause of the crash is currently unknown
Azerbaijan Airlines initially reported that the aircraft crashed into a flock of birds, before later withdrawing this information.
For its part, the regional directorate of the Ministry of Health of Kazakhstan spoke, in a press release, of an “explosion of a bottle” inside the aircraft, without going into further details.
According to Flightradar24, which tracks aircraft traffic in real time, the Embraer 190 crossed the Caspian Sea, deviating from its normal course, before circling over the area where it crashed.
