Many feared dead in Kazakhstan plane crash

A drone view shows the crash site where an Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer passenger plane went down near the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan, on Dec 25. (Photo: Reuters)

Published 4:30 PM ET, Wednesday December 25, 2024

ASTANA, Kazakhstan: On Wednesday, an Embraer passenger plane flying from Azerbaijan to Russia crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, killing 38 passengers and five crew members, according to Kazakh police. 32 survivors were rescued.

The plane with 62 passengers and five crew members on board crashed after it was forced to make an emergency landing about three kilometers (1.8 miles) from Aktau.

“The situation is not very good, 38 dead,” Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev as saying.

Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 had flown hundreds of miles off its scheduled route to crash on the opposite shore of the Caspian Sea after what Russia’s aviation watchdog said was an emergency that may have been caused by a bird strike.

The Embraer 190 aircraft was en route from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus.
Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general’s office earlier said 32 of the 67 people on board had survived.

“We cannot disclose any investigation results at this time. All possible scenarios are being examined, and the necessary expert analyses are underway,” it said in a statement.

“An investigative team, led by the deputy prosecutor general of Azerbaijan, has been dispatched to Kazakhstan and is working at the crash site.”

Azerbaijan Airlines said it was suspending all its flights from Baku to Russia’s Chechnya region until the investigation is concluded, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.

Authorities in Kazakhstan said a government commission will investigate the crash, and its members have been ordered to fly to the site and ensure that the families of the dead and injured are getting the help they need.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev cut short a visit to Russia where he was due to attend a summit on Wednesday.

“We deeply sympathize with those who lost their relatives and friends in this plane crash and wish a speedy recovery to all those who managed to survive,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, also expressed his condolences in a statement.