An Azerbaijani airliner with 67 people on board crashed Wednesday in the Kazakhstani city of Aktau, officials said, adding that more than 30 are believed to be dead.
Kazakhstan's Ministry of Emergencies said in a Telegram statement that there are at least 32 survivors, and among those on board were five crew members. At least 29 have been hospitalized, the ministry told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
Russian news agency Interfax reported that medical workers said four bodies had been recovered and emergency workers at the scene said both pilots were presumed dead in the crash.
The Embraer 190 plane made an emergency landing three kilometers from the city, Azerbaijan Airlines said earlier.
The ministry initially said 25 people survived the crash, revising that number to 29 as search and rescue operations continued at the crash site, lowering the supposed death toll.
The Prosecutor General's Office of Azerbaijan later said that at least 32 people survived, adding that the number was not final. The number of people who survived could mean that more than 30 people could be dead.
It was originally planned to travel from the Azerbaijani capital 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 citizens and three Kyrgyzstani citizens, he said.
Bird strike, GPS jamming
RIA Novosti reported that Russia's civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said that preliminary information showed that the pilot had chosen to go to Aktau after a bird strike on the plane led to an “emergency situation on board”.
Mobile phone footage circulating online appeared to show the plane descending steeply before crashing into the ground in a fireball. Other pictures showed part of its fuselage torn away from the wings and the rest of the plane, lying upside down in the grass. The film matched the colors of the aircraft 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 plane making what appeared to be a correct figure as it approached the airport in Aktau, its altitude moving up and down dramatically over the minutes end of the plane before it hit the ground.
Separately, FlightRadar24 said in an online post that the aircraft had encountered “strong GPS interference” that “caused the aircraft to transmit bad ADS-B data,” referring to the information that allows Flight tracking websites to track planes in flight.
Russia has been blamed in the past for installing GPS transmissions in the wider region.
Embraer did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Wednesday morning. In a statement, Azerbaijan Airlines said it would keep the public updated and would change its social media banners to solid black.
Azerbaijan's state news agency Azertac reported that an official delegation consisting of Azerbaijan's minister of emergency situations, the country's deputy prosecutor general, and the vice president of Azerbaijan Airlines was sent to Aktau to “investigate the site” to make.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who had been traveling to St. Petersburg, to Azerbaijan when he heard news of the accident, the press service of the president said. Aliyev was to attend an informal meeting of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a bloc of Soviet countries formed after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Aliyev expressed his condolences to the families of the victims in a statement on social media. “It is with great sadness that I express my condolences to the families of the victims and wish a speedy recovery to those who were injured,” he wrote.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to Aliyev by phone and expressed his condolences, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Both Kazakhstani and Azerbaijani authorities were investigating the accident. Embraer told The Associated Press in a statement that the company is “ready to assist all relevant authorities.”
