A plane crash in Kazakhstan claimed the lives of half of the people on board

KATIE MARY DAVIS and DASHA LITVINOVA

An Azerbaijani airliner with 67 people on board crashed on Wednesday near the city of The Kazakh city of Aktauleaving at least 32 alive, according to officials. More than 30 people may die.

The plane was heading from the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus.

The Ministry of Emergencies of Kazakhstan reported on Telegram that there were five crew members on board. A total of 29 victims, including two children, were hospitalized, the ministry told the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Another Russian news agency, Interfax, quoted medical workers as saying that 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 3 km from the city, Azerbaijan Airlines reported earlier.

Kazakhstan’s Emergencies Ministry initially said 25 people had survived the crash, but later revised that number to 29 as search and rescue operations continued at the crash site, reducing the death toll.

Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General’s Office later reported that at least 32 people had survived the crash, adding that the figure was not final. The statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan states that some of them are in serious condition.

The number of survivors could mean that more than 30 people could be dead.

According to Kazakh officials, 42 citizens of Azerbaijan, 16 citizens of Russia, six citizens of Kazakhstan and three citizens of Kyrgyzstan were on board the plane.

RIA Novosti quotes the Russian Civil Aviation Administration of Rosaviatsia, which claims that according to preliminary information, the pilot decided to direct the course to Kazakhstan’s Aktau after encountering a bird on the plane, which led to an “emergency situation on board.”

Mobile phone footage circulating online shows the plane descending sharply before crashing into the ground in a fireball. Other footage shows part of its fuselage detached from the wings, and the rest of the plane lying upside down in the grass. The footage matched the aircraft’s colors and registration number.

Some videos posted on social media show survivors pulling passengers from the wreckage of the plane.

Flight tracking data from FlightRadar24.com showed the plane, approaching the airport in Aktau, making something like the figure on the right, its altitude changing significantly up and down during the final minutes of the flight before hitting the ground.

FlightRadar24 separately said in an online post that the plane encountered “severe GPS interference” that caused “the plane to transmit poor ADS-B data,” citing information that allows flight-tracking websites to track planes in flight. Russia has previously been accused of jamming GPS transmissions in the wider region.

In a statement, Azerbaijan Airlines said it would inform the public and changed its social media banners to black.