Plane crash in Kazakhstan killed dozens, but nearly half of those on board survived, officials say
Moscow — An Azerbaijani airliner with 67 people on board crashed Wednesday in western Kazakhstan, near the city of Aktau, killing 38 people and leaving 29 survivors, a Kazakh official said.
Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbaev disclosed the figures while meeting with Azerbaijani officials, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.
Azerbaijan Airlines said 67 people were on board — 62 passengers and five crew members. Interfax quoted emergency workers at the scene as saying a preliminary assessment showed both pilots died in the crash.
The Embraer 190 aircraft attempted to make an emergency landing roughly two miles from Aktau, Azerbaijan Airlines said. Russia's civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said that preliminary information showed that the pilots diverted to Aktau after a bird strike led to an emergency on board.
The plane was originally scheduled to travel from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus. Russian news agencies said the plane had been rerouted due to fog in Grozny, Reuters reported.
Speaking at a news conference, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that it was too soon to speculate on the reasons behind the crash, but said that the weather had forced the plane to change from its planned course.
"The information provided to me is that the plane changed its course between Baku and Grozny due to worsening weather conditions and headed to Aktau airport, where it crashed upon landing," he said.
Kazakhstan's Emergency Ministry initially said 25 people survived the crash, later revising that number to 27, 28 and then 29 as the search and rescue operation continued at the site of the crash, bringing the apparent death toll down.
According to Kazakh officials, those aboard the plane included 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhs and three Kyrgyzstan nationals. Azerbaijan's prosecutor general's office previously said that 32 of the 67 people on board had survived the crash, but told journalists that the number wasn't final.
The Associated Press could not immediately reconcile the difference between the numbers of survivors given by Kazakhstan and Azerbaijani officials.
Interfax reported that Kazakh authorities said they'd started probing possible causes of the crash, including a technical problem, according to Reuters.
Mobile phone footage circulating online appeared to show the aircraft making a steep descent before smashing into the ground in a fireball. Crews put out the blaze at the site, the emergency ministry said.
Other footage showed part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings and the rest of the aircraft lying upside in the grass. The footage corresponded to the plane's colors and its registration number.
Some of the videos posted on social media showed survivors dragging fellow passengers away from the plane's wreckage.
Unverified video showed people stumbling from a piece of the fuselage that remained intact, Reuters reported.
Flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24.com showed the aircraft making what appeared to be a figure-eight as it neared the airport in Aktau, its altitude moving up and down substantially over the last minutes of the flight before impacting the ground.
FlightRadar24 separately said in an online post that the aircraft had faced "strong GPS jamming" which " made the aircraft transmit bad ADS-B data," referring to the information that enables flight-tracking websites to follow planes in flight. Russia has been blamed in the past for jamming GPS transmissions in the wider region.
Embraer told The Associated Press in a statement that the company is "ready to assist all relevant authorities."
In a statement, Azerbaijan Airlines said it would keep members of the public updated and changed its social media banners to solid black. It also said that it would suspend flights between Baku and Grozny, as well as between Baku and the city of Makhachkala in Russia's North Caucasus, until its investigation into the crash has been concluded.
When reached by CBS News, a National Security Council spokesperson said that the White House had seen the media reports of the crash and referred CBS News "to Azerbaijani and Kazakhstani officials as the investigation continues."
Azerbaijan's state news agency, Azertac, said that an official delegation of Azerbaijan's emergency situations minister, the deputy general prosecutor and the vice president of Azerbaijan Airlines were sent to Aktau to conduct an "on-site investigation."
Aliyev, who was traveling to Russia, returned to Azerbaijan on hearing news of the crash, the president's press service said. He was due to attend an informal meeting of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a bloc of former Soviet countries founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in St. Petersburg.
Aliyev expressed his condolences to the families of the victims in a statement on social media. "It is with deep sadness that I express my condolences to the families of the victims and wish a speedy recovery to those injured," he wrote.
He also signed a decree declaring Dec. 26 a day of mourning in Azerbaijan.