An Azerbaijan Airlines plane has crashed in Kazakhstan, many feared dead

Written by Mariya Gordeyeva

ASTANA (Reuters) – An Embraer passenger jet en route from Azerbaijan to Russia crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau on Wednesday with 62 passengers and five crew on board, Kazakh authorities said, adding that 32 people survived.

An unverified video of the crash showed the plane, owned by Azerbaijan Airlines, bursting into flames when it hit the beach, and thick black smoke billowing out. Bloody and bruised passengers could be seen tripping over a piece of the fuselage that remained intact.

The Ministry of Emergencies in Kazakhstan said in a statement that firefighters extinguished the fire and the survivors, including two children, were treated at a nearby hospital. The bodies of the dead were being recovered.

Azerbaijan Airlines said the Embraer 190, with flight number J2-8243, was flying from Baku to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya region in southern Russia, but was forced to make an emergency landing three kilometers away ( 1.8 miles) from Aktau in Kazakhstan.

Aktau is on the opposite coast of the Caspian Sea from Azerbaijan and Russia.

Commercial flight tracking websites tracked the plane flying north on its planned route along the west coast before its flight path was no longer recorded. It then reappeared on the other side, on the east coast where it circled near the Aktau airport before crashing into the sea.

The authorities in Kazakhstan said that a government commission has been established to investigate what happened and its members have ordered to fly to the area to ensure that the families of the dead and injured receive the necessary assistance.

Kazakhstan will cooperate with Azerbaijan in the investigation, the government said.

The Russian Air Force in a statement said that preliminary information suggests that the pilot decided to make an emergency landing after the bird strike.

President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences as did Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, who decided to return home from Russia where he was going to attend a conference on Wednesday, his office said.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, expressed his condolences in a statement and said that some were being treated in hospital in a very critical condition and that he and others would pray for their speedy recovery.

(Reporting by Mariya Gordeyeva and Tamara Vaal in Astana, Nailia Bagirova and Moscow bureau Writing by Andrew Osborn Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Peter Graff)