Dozens killed as passenger plane crashes in Kazakhstan

Dozens were killed Wednesday after a passenger plane carrying 67 people from Azerbaijan to Russia crashed in Kazakhstan, authorities said.

The Azerbaijan Airlines flight, which crashed near Aktau, a city in southwestern Kazakhstan, had 62 passengers and five crew members on board, Kazakhstan’s Emergencies Ministry said in a post on Telegram. The Kazakh Health Ministry later published a list of 29 survivors, including two children.

Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said 38 people were killed in the crash, according to the Kazakh news outlet Tengrinews.

Bozumbayev told the Tengrinews that the bodies were “mostly burnt” and would be taken to a morgue for identification.

The Russian state news agency Ria Novosti reported that the passengers were 37 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russians, 6 Kazakh citizens and 3 Kyrgyz citizens, citing the Kazakh Transport Ministry.

The flight was en route from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny in Russia’s Chechnya region but was diverted to the Russian city of Makhachkala, about 100 miles east of Gronzny, because of fog, the press service of the Grozny airport told the Russian state news agency Tass.

The Embraer 190 aircraft made an emergency landing approximately 1.8 miles away from the city of Aktau, according to a statement released on Telegram by Azerbaijan Airlines.

A preliminary investigation found the plane collided with birds and was diverted to Aktau because of an emergency on board, according to a statement issued on Telegram by Russia’s aviation authority, Rosaviatsia.

The investigation is ongoing and additional information regarding the incident will be provided, Azerbaijan Airlines said in a statement released on Telegram.

There was a fire at the crash site, but it had been “completely extinguished,” the Kazakh Emergencies Ministry said.

It added that a total of 150 personnel and 45 units of equipment were involved in the emergency response.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had called his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, to express his condolences.

“We deeply sympathize with those who lost their loved ones in this air crash, and wish a speedy recovery to those who survived,” Peskov said, adding that Aliyev had been forced to leave St. Petersburg where he had been due to attend a summit.

Aliyev declared Thursday a national day of mourning in Azerbaijan.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov expressed his condolences to the families of the deceased passengers in a post on his Telegram account Wednesday morning.