At least 38 people died when a plane from Azerbaijan Airlines crashed on Wednesday near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, authorities reported. Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbaev reported the death toll after meeting with Azerbaijani officials, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.
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Previously, the prosecutor's office of Azerbaijan had stated that 32 of the 67 people on board had survived.
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How was the airplane accident in Kazakhstan?
The plane crashed while it was on its way from the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus.
The Ministry of Emergency Situations of Kazakhstan said in a statement on Telegram that among the people on board were five crew members. A total of 29 survivors, including two children, have been hospitalized, the ministry reported to Russia's state news agency, RIA Novosti.
Another Russian news agency, Interfax, cited medical workers saying that four bodies had been recovered.
The Embraer 190 aircraft made an emergency landing 3 kilometers from the city, Azerbaijan Airlines said earlier.
According to Kazakh officials, among the passengers on the plane were 42 citizens of Azerbaijan, 16 Russians, six Kazakhs, and three Kyrgyz citizens, as reported.
The Russian civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, reported that preliminary information shows that the pilot had decided to divert to Aktau, Kazakhstan, after a bird strike on the aircraft led to “an emergency situation on board,”, according to RIA Novosti.
Images of mobile phones circulating online appeared to show the aircraft making a steep descent before crashing into 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 on the grass. The images matched the colors of the plane and its registration number.
Some of the videos posted on social media showed survivors dragging other passengers away from the remains of the plane.
Flight tracking data from FlightRadar24.com shows that the aircraft seemingly made "a figure eight" near the airport in Aktau, with its altitude rising and falling significantly during the final minutes of the flight before crashing into the ground.
FlightRadar24 said separately in an online post that the aircraft had faced "strong GPS interference" which "caused the aircraft to broadcast incorrect ADS-B data," referring to the information that allows websites to track a flight. Russia has been blamed in the past for interfering with GPS transmissions in the region.
The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, who had been traveling to Russia, returned to Azerbaijan upon hearing the news of the accident, reported the president's press service. Aliyev was scheduled 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.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with Aliyev by phone and expressed his condolences, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.