More than 30 people are feared dead after an Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed in Kazakhstan.
Officials say at least 32 of the 67 people onboard the aircraft survived the crash in the city of Aktau.
Kazakhstan’s Emergency Ministry said in a Telegram statement that those onboard included five crew. At least 29 have been admitted to hospital, the ministry told Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti.
Russian news agency Interfax quoted medical workers as saying that four bodies have been recovered and emergency workers at the scene as saying that both pilots, according to a preliminary assessment, died in the crash.
Kazakhstan’s Emergency Ministry initially said 25 people survived the crash, later revising that number to 27, 28, and then 29 as the search and rescue operation continued at the site of the crash, bringing the supposed death toll down.
The Prosecutor General’s Office in Azerbaijan later reported that at least 32 people survived the crash, adding that the number was not final.
The number of survivors could mean that more than 30 people may be dead.
The plane was originally scheduled to travel from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus. According to Azerbaijan Airlines, 37 passengers were Azerbaijani citizens. There were also 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhstani and three Kyrgyzstani citizens, it said.
RIA Novosti quoted Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, as saying that preliminary information showed that the pilot had chosen to divert to Aktau after a bird strike on the aircraft led to “an emergency situation on board”.
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’s altitude moving up and down substantially over the last minutes of the flight as it approached the airport in Aktau before hitting 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.
Speaking at a news conference, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said 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.
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”.
Mr Aliyev, who had been travelling to St Petersburg, returned to Azerbaijan on hearing news of the crash, the president’s press service said. Mr Aliyev was due to attend an informal meeting of leaders of Commonwealth of Independent States, a bloc of former Soviet countries founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Mr 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 December 26 a day of mourning in Azerbaijan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to Mr Aliyev on the phone and expressed his condolences, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Speaking at the CIS meeting in St Petersburg, Mr 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”.
