Leadnaija
Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbaev disclosed the death toll while meeting with Azerbaijani officials, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.
Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general’s office said previously that 32 of the 67 people on board the plane had survived...CLICK TO READ THE FULL NEWS HERE▶▶
The Azerbaijan Airlines flight was flying from Baku in Azerbaijan to Grozny in Russia but crashed near Aktau airport in the west of Kazakhstan.
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.
Video footage shared online appeared to show a plane burst into a fireball as it tried to land before a large cloud of black smoke quickly appeared.
Flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24.com showed the aircraft making what appeared to be a figure eight once nearing the airport in Aktau.
It 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.
Footage showed bloodied and bruised passengers stumbling from a piece of the fuselage that had remained intact.
The Central Asian country’s emergency ministry said in a statement that fire services had put out the blaze and that survivors, including three children, were being treated at a nearby hospital.
Azerbaijan Airlines said the Embraer 190 aircraft, with flight number J2-8243, had been flying from Baku to Grozny, the capital of Russia’s Chechnya, but had been forced to make an emergency landing approximately 3km from the Kazakh city of Aktau.
Russian news agencies said the plane had been rerouted due to fog in Grozny.
Kazakhstan’s Emergency Ministry said in a Telegram statement that those onboard included five crew. A total of 29 survivors, including two children, have been taken to hospital, the ministry told RIA Novosti.
Another 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 died.
According to Kazakh officials, those aboard the plane included 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhs and three Kyrgyzstan nationals.
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.
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.
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 been concluded.
Azerbaijan’s state news agency, Azertac, said that an official delegation of Azerbaijan’s emergency situations minister, the deputy general prosecutor and the vice president of Azerbaijan Airlines were sent to Aktau to conduct an “on-site investigation.”
Aliyev, who was travelling to Russia, returned to Azerbaijan on hearing news of the crash, the president’s press service said.
He was due 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.
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 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.
Kazakhstani, Azerbaijani and Russian authorities said they were investigating the crash. Embraer said in a statement that the company is “ready to assist all relevant authorities.”..CLICK TO READ THE FULL NEWS HERE▶▶
