Over 30 dead in deadly Azerbaijan plane crash
BAKU (Azerbaijan), 17 hours, 54 minutes ago
Dozens of people have died after a Azerbaijan Airlines plane, en route to Grozny in Russia's Chechnya from Baku today (December 25) crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, said media reports citing local authorities.
There were 62 passengers and 5 crew members on board the Embraer 190 aircraft, which the Russian news agencies said, had gotten rerouted due to fog in Grozny.
Unverified video of the crash showed the plane, which was operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, bursting into flames as it hit the ground and thick black smoke then rising. Bloodied and bruised passengers could be seen stumbling from a piece of the fuselage that had remained intact.
Authorities in Azerbaijan, where the flight originated, told BBC that there were at least 30 survivors.
The Central Asian country's emergencies ministry said in a statement that fire services had put out the blaze and that the survivors, including three children, were being treated at a nearby hospital.
According to Reuters, the plane was forced to make an emergency landing approximately 3 km from the Kazakh city of Aktau due to thick fog.
Authorities in Kazakhstan said they had begun looking into different possible versions of what had happened, including a technical problem, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.
Following the crash, Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, was returning home from Russia where he had been due to attend a summit on Wednesday, Russia's RIA news agency reported.
The flight J2-8243 took off from the Azerbaijani capital Baku at 03:55 GMT on Wednesday, and crashed around 06:28, data from flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed.
Reports from Russian media say the aircraft collided with a flock of birds before crashing, but this has not yet been confirmed.
Officials from the countries involved have stated different numbers for those who were on board and for those who survived.
The airline said 62 passengers and 5 crew members were on board the Embraer 190 but other reports put the total at 72. The reported number of survivors ranges from 28 to 32, reported BBC.
Those on board were mostly Azerbaijani nationals, but there were also some passengers from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
