An Azerbaijani airliner with 67 people onboard crashed Wednesday near the Kazakhstani city of Aktau, killing 38 people and leaving 29 survivors, a Kazakh official said.
Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbaev disclosed the figures while meeting with Azerbaijani officials, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.
The Embraer 190 was en route from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus when it was diverted and attempted an emergency landing three kilometres from Aktau, Azerbaijan Airlines said.
Speaking at a news conference, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that it was too soon to speculate on the reasons behind the crash, but said that the weather had forced the plane to change from its planned course.
“The information provided to me is that the plane changed its course between Baku and Grozny due to worsening weather conditions and headed to Aktau airport, where it crashed upon landing,” he said.
RIA Novosti quoted Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, as saying that preliminary information showed the pilot had chosen to divert to Aktau after a bird strike on the aircraft led to “an emergency situation on board.”
According to Kazakhstani officials, those aboard included 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhstani and three Kyrgyzstani citizens.
Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general’s office later reported that at least 32 people survived, but told journalists that the number wasn’t final. The Associated Press could not immediately reconcile the difference between the numbers of survivors given by Kazakhstan and Azerbaijani officials.
Bird strike, GPS jamming
Mobile phone footage circulating online appeared to show the aircraft making a steep descent before smashing into the ground in a fireball. Other footage showed part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings and the rest of the aircraft, lying upside in the grass. The footage corresponded to the plane’s colours and its registration number.
Some of the videos posted on social media showed survivors dragging fellow passengers away from the wreckage of the plane.
Flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24.com showed the aircraft making what appeared to be a figure-right once nearing the airport in Aktau, its altitude moving up and down substantially over the last minutes of the flight before impacting the ground.
FlightRadar24 separately said in an online post that the aircraft had faced “strong GPS jamming” which “made the aircraft transmit bad ADS-B data,” referring to the information that allows flight-tracking websites to follow planes in flight.
Russia has been blamed in the past for jamming GPS transmissions in the wider region.
Azerbaijan Airlines said it would keep members of the public updated and changed its social media banners to solid black. It also said that 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 crash has concluded.
Azerbaijan’s state news agency, Azertac, said that an official delegation consisting of Azerbaijan’s emergency situations minister, the country’s deputy general prosecutor and the vice president of Azerbaijan Airlines had been dispatched to Aktau to conduct an “on-site investigation.”
Aliyev, who had been travelling to St. Petersburg in Russia, returned to Azerbaijan on hearing news of the crash, the president’s press service said. Aliyev was due to attend an informal meeting of leaders of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a bloc of former Soviet countries founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Aliyev expressed his condolences to the families of the victims 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 those injured,” he wrote.
He also signed a decree declaring Dec. 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 Russia’s Emergency Ministry sent a plane with equipment and medical workers to Kazakhstan to assist with the aftermath of the crash.
Both Kazakhstani and Azerbaijani authorities were investigating the crash. Embraer told The Associated Press in a statement that the company is “ready to assist all relevant authorities.”
