An Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed in western Kazakhstan on Wednesday with 67 people on board, 38 of whom died according to Kazakh authorities, with the circumstances of the crash still to be clarified.
“The situation is not very good, 38 dead,” Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said during a meeting, according to the Russian agency Interfax. This figure is also cited by the Kazakh pro-government site Tengrinews.
The country's Ministry of Emergency Situations, for its part, indicated on Telegram that “29 people were hospitalized, including three children.”
The general prosecutor's office of Azerbaijan, a country in the Caucasus from which the plane took off, had earlier affirmed that “32 people survived”, without giving a death toll.
According to Azerbaijan Airlines, the Embraer 190 was operating a flight between Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, and Grozny, capital of the Russian Caucasian Republic of Chechnya.
According to the company, 62 passengers and five crew members were on board the plane which “made an emergency landing” about three kilometers from Aktau.
It crashed near this Caspian port, according to the Kazakh Emergency Situations Ministry.
The cause of the crash is not known.
In videos published by Russian media, we see the plane hit the ground, a gigantic fire immediately breaking out.
Other images show the plane on the ground, partially charred, the front of the aircraft having been completely destroyed.
After the crash, “the plane caught fire”, said the Kazakh Ministry of Emergency Situations, specifying that it had dispatched 150 rescuers to the scene.
– “All possible scenarios” –
“We cannot disclose the results of the investigation at the moment. All possible scenarios are being examined, and the necessary expertise is underway,” underlined the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General's Office.
A team of Azerbaijani investigators went to Kazakhstan and are “working on the scene”, according to the same source.
Azerbaijan Airlines initially claimed that the plane had hit a flock of birds, before withdrawing this information.
The Russian civil aviation agency (Rosaviatsia) also spoke of a “collision with birds” on Wednesday morning, citing “preliminary” information.
The “emergency situation” had pushed the pilot to choose “another aerodrome”, that of Aktau, she added.
However, it is on the other side of the Caspian Sea, far from its normal route. It is not known why the aircraft landed there.
For its part, the regional department of the Kazakh Ministry of Health reported, in a press release, a “balloon explosion” on board the aircraft, without further details.
According to the Flightradar24 service, which tracks the movement of planes in real time, the aircraft crossed the Caspian Sea, deviating from its normal route, before circling above the area where it crashed. .
The Kazakh Interior Ministry announced the opening of an investigation into “violation of air transport safety and operational rules”.
“According to initial information, there were 37 Azerbaijani nationals, six Kazakh nationals, three Kyrgyz citizens and 16 Russian citizens” on board the aircraft, said the Kazakh Ministry of Transport.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who arrived in Russia to participate in an informal summit of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) near St. Petersburg (northwest) with Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, decided to interrupt his visit and urgently return to Azerbaijan, according to the press service of the Azerbaijani presidency.
– Condolences –
Ilham Aliyev declared a day of national mourning in Azerbaijan on Thursday.
“I offer my condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in this crash (…) and wish a quick recovery to the injured,” Mr. Aliev said on social networks.
He also ordered to take “urgent measures to investigate the causes of the disaster”, according to the presidential press service.
The company deplored a “tragic day” by sending its condolences to the relatives of the victims. “Their pain is our pain,” she said in a statement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, according to the Kremlin.
A plane from the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry is on its way to Aktau with “medical personnel” and equipment, he later said during a meeting at the informal CIS summit.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov assured on Telegram “pray to God for the healing” of the injured.
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