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At least 32 survive Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash
The plane was en route from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus.
Kazakhstan’s Emergency Ministry said in a Telegram statement that those on board included five crew. A total of 29 survivors, including two children, have been hospitalized, the ministry told Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
The Embraer 190 aircraft made an emergency landing 3 km from the city, Azerbaijan Airlines said earlier.
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 supposed death toll down.
The Prosecutor General’s Office in Azerbaijan later reported that at least 32 people survived the crash, adding that the number wasn’t final. Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that some of them were in critical condition.
The number of survivors could mean that over 30 people may be dead.
According to Kazakhstani officials, those aboard the plane included 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhstani and three Kyrgyzstani citizens, it said.
RIA Novosti quoted Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, as saying that preliminary information showed that the pilot had chosen to divert to Kazakhstan’s Aktau after a bird strike on the aircraft led to “an emergency situation on board”.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian in a message to his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev expressed his condolences to the president and the people of Azerbaijan.