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Azerbaijan is marking a day of mourning after a local airline’s passenger plane crashed off the coast of the Caspian Sea.
Authorities in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia are investigating the emergency landing Wednesday morning that killed at least 38 people.
Here’s what we know about the accident.
Where did the passenger plane crash?
The plane crashed about 3 kilometers (1.8 mi) from the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea.
It was headed from Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny, capital of the Chechnya region in southern Russia.
Who was on board?
The Embraer 190 aircraft, flight number J2-8243, was carrying 62 passengers and five crew members.
According to Kazakh officials, the people on board were citizens of four different countries:
- 42 Azerbaijani citizens
- 16 Russian citizens
- 6 Kazakh citizens
- 3 Kyrgyz citizens
How many of them survived?
There are 32 survivors, including two children, who have been hospitalized and many of them in critical condition. Many were pulled from the rubble, while some, according to rescuers and video footage, crawled outside, bloodied.
Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev announced that 38 people had died.
Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted emergency workers at the scene as saying that both pilots, according to a preliminary assessment, died in the crash.
Why did the plane crash?
The crash was reportedly due to an “emergency situation” on board after a bird strike, Russia’s aviation watchdog said on Telegram.
The plane had to divert from its original route due to dense fog in Grozny, its intended destination, and make an emergency landing.
Commercial aviation tracking websites recorded the flight traveling north along its scheduled route on the West Coast before disappearing. It later reappeared on the east coast, circling near Aktau airport before finally crashing.
“According to preliminary reports, the plane requested to land at an alternative airport before the crash… due to dense fog in Grozny,” Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova reported from Moscow.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in a statement that “according to the information provided to me, the AZAL airline plane, which was flying on the Baku-Grozny route, changed its course due to worsening weather conditions and began to head towards Aktau airport, where the accident occurred. during landing.”
The nearest Russian airport, Makhachkala, was closed earlier in the day due to drone activity.
Heavy GPS interference in the region, which has been linked to past incidents, may have further complicated navigation and contributed to the crash, according to an online post by FlightRadar24.
Aliyev acknowledged there were multiple theories about what could have caused the crash, but cautioned against speculation.
“There are videos of the plane crash available in the media and on social networks and everyone can see them. However, we still do not know the causes of the accident,” said the president of Azerbaijan. “There are several theories, but I think it is premature to discuss them.”
What’s the latest on the ground?
Emergency services have been actively responding to the situation.
Firefighters extinguished the fire caused by the accident, while 150 emergency workers and medical teams, including specialist doctors flown in from Astana, are treating the injured.
Azerbaijan Airlines said it will suspend all its flights between Baku and Grozny, as well as between Baku and Makhachkala until the investigation is concluded.
The airline also created a hotline for passengers’ families and posted all their names on its social media pages.
Aliyev also signed a decree declaring December 26 a day of mourning in the country. Azerbaijan’s president, who was flying to Russia for a summit at the time, said he was informed of the accident while in the air.
“I immediately gave instructions for the plane to return to Baku,” Aliyev said in a statement issued by his office.
What investigations are being carried out?
Kazakh, Azerbaijani and Russian authorities said they were investigating the crash.
“An investigation team, led by the deputy prosecutor general of Azerbaijan, has been sent to Kazakhstan and is working at the accident site,” Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement.
Azerbaijan’s state news agency Azertac said the team sent to Aktau for an “on-site investigation” also included Azerbaijan’s emergency situations minister and the vice president of Azerbaijan Airlines. Azertac said the plane’s black box, a flight recorder that investigators use to determine the causes of aviation accidents, had been found.
Aliyev, in his statement, said that “a criminal case has been initiated” and that the Azerbaijani public will be “regularly informed” about the progress of the investigation.
Kazakhstan has formed a government commission to examine the cause of the disaster and ensure that the families of the dead and injured receive the help they need.
Investigations focus on possible technical problems and the closure of nearby airspace.
Embraer, the Brazilian manufacturer of the plane, has expressed its willingness to collaborate with the investigations.
