A Azerbaijani A passenger plane with 67 people on board crashed near the Kazakh town of Aktau on Wednesday, killing 38 people and leaving 29 survivors, a Kazakh official said.
Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbaev revealed the figures during 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 was hijacked and attempted an emergency landing 3 kilometers from Aktau, it said. Azerbaijan Airlines.
Speaking at a news conference, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said it was too early to speculate on the reasons for the crash, but said weather conditions forced the plane to change its trajectory planned.
“The information provided to me is that the plane changed course between Baku and Grozny due to deteriorating weather conditions and headed towards Aktau airport, where it crashed at landing,” he said.
Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said preliminary information showed the pilots had 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, Wednesday, December 25, 2024.
AP Photo/Azamat Sarsenbayev
According to Kazakh authorities, the plane’s passengers included 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhs and three Kyrgyz nationals. Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general’s office previously said 32 of the 67 people on board had survived the crash, but told reporters that figure was not final. The Associated Press could not immediately reconcile the difference between the number of survivors given by Kazakh and Azerbaijani authorities.
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Cellphone footage circulating online appears to show the plane making a steep descent before crashing to the ground in a ball of fire. Other images showed part of its fuselage torn from the wings and the rest of the plane lying upside down in the grass. The images matched the colors of the plane and its registration number.
Some videos posted on social media showed survivors pulling other passengers away from the wreckage.
Flight tracking data from FlightRadar24.com showed the plane doing what appeared to be a figure eight once on approach to Aktau airport, with its altitude rising and falling significantly over the final minutes flight before hitting the ground.
FlightRadar24 separately said in an online article that the plane experienced “strong GPS jamming,” which “caused the plane to transmit poor ADS-B data,” referring to the information that allows websites flight tracking track planes in flight. Russia has been accused in the past of jamming GPS transmissions in the wider region.
In this photo taken from a video released by the Mangystau region administration, the wreckage of Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 lies on the ground near Aktau Airport, Kazakhstan, Wednesday, December 25 2024.
The administration of the Manguistau region via AP
Azerbaijan Airlines said it would keep members of the public informed and changed its banners on social media to solid black. It also announced it would suspend flights between Baku and Grozny, as well as between Baku and the city of Makhachkala in Russia’s North Caucasus, until its investigation into the accident was completed.
Azerbaijan’s state news agency Azertac said an official delegation consisting of Azerbaijan’s minister of emergency situations, deputy prosecutor general and vice president of Azerbaijan Airlines had been sent to Aktau to conduct an “on-site investigation “.
Aliyev, who was traveling to Russia, returned to Azerbaijan after hearing the news of the accident, the president’s press service said. He was due to attend an informal meeting of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a bloc of former Soviet countries founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in St. Petersburg.
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 a speedy recovery to the injured,” he wrote.
He also signed a decree declaring December 26 a day of mourning in Azerbaijan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to Aliyev on the phone and expressed his condolences, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Speaking at the CIS meeting in St. Petersburg, Putin also said that the Russian Emergency Ministry had sent a plane with equipment and medical personnel to Kazakhstan to help deal with the consequences of the accident.
Authorities in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia said they were investigating the accident. Embraer told The Associated Press in a statement that the company was “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.
© 2024 The Canadian Press