Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane crashes in Kazakhstan
A passenger plane operated by Azerbaijan Airlines has crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, with 62 passengers and five crew onboard, Kazakh authorities said, adding that 27 people had survived.
The survivors, which include three children, were being treated at a nearby hospital.
Unverified video of the crash on Wednesday showed the plane bursting into flames as it hit the ground and thick black smoke then rising. Bloodied and bruised passengers could be seen stumbling from a piece of the fuselage that had remained intact.
More than 50 rescuers had rushed to the scene and had managed to extinguish a fire at the crash site.
“A plane doing the Baku-Grozny route crashed near the city of Aktau. It belongs to Azerbaijan Airlines,” Kazakhstan’s transport ministry said on Telegram.
The Kazakh transport ministry said there were 62 passengers and five crew members on the plane.
Russian news agencies said the plane had been flying from Baku to Grozny in Chechnya, but had been rerouted because of fog in Grozny.
Authorities in Kazakhstan said they had begun looking into what had happened, mulling possible explanations such as a technical problem, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.
Azerbaijan Airlines, the country’s flag carrier, said the Embraer 190 had made an emergency landing about 2 miles (3km) from Aktau, an oil and gas hub on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea.
“Information about casualties is currently being clarified but, according to preliminary information, there are survivors,” the emergency ministry said.
Russia’s aviation watchdog said in a statement that preliminary information suggested the pilot had decided to make an emergency landing after a bird strike.
Following news of the crash, Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, was returning home from Russia where he had been due to attend a summit on Wednesday, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, expressed his condolences in a statement and said those being treated in hospital were in an extremely serious condition and that he and others would pray for their rapid recovery.