At least 38 people were killed when a passenger plane headed from Azerbaijan to Russia's Chechnya region crashed on Christmas Day, officials said.
Azerbaijan Airlines Flight J2-8243 flew “several hundred miles off its planned route” and crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau on the other side of the Caspian Sea, Reuters reported.
Video footage taken by a witness on the ground showed the plane failing to land safely, bursting into flames and shattering into pieces upon impact.
Russian aviation surveillance authorities say the emergency may have been caused by a bird strike, but it is unclear why the flight veered so far off course. Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev said the weather was bad, and Reuters noted that drone activity in southern Russia had closed airports in the region.
The plane, an Embraer 190 jet, was flying from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny, the capital of the Chechen Republic in southern Russia.
There were 67 people on board the plane, 29 of whom were survivor He is receiving treatment, a Kazakh official told NPR.
It added that the passengers included 42 Azerbaijani nationals, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakh nationals and three Kyrgyzstan nationals.
“This is a great tragedy and a great sadness for the Azerbaijani people,” President Aliyev said in a statement.
“According to the information provided to me, the plane changed course between Baku and Grozny due to worsening weather conditions, headed for Aktau airport and crashed on landing,” the Azerbaijani leader added.
He also declared December 26th as a National Day of Mourning.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin had already called Aliyev to express his condolences.
Lectured at the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an intergovernmental organization in Eurasia. meeting In St. Petersburg, Putin also said his country had sent Emergencies Ministry planes to rescue victims and assist local authorities after the catastrophic crash.
Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia all announced they would investigate the tragedy, as did aircraft manufacturer Embraer. said The company “stands ready to assist all relevant authorities,” The Associated Press said in a statement.
