Azerbaijan is marking a day of mourning after a local airline’s passenger plane crashed off the coast of the Caspian Sea.
Authorities across Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia are investigating the emergency landing on Wednesday morning that killed at least 38 people.
Here’s what we know about the crash.
Where did the passenger plane crash?
The plane crashed about 3km (1.8 miles) from the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea.
It was en route from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny, capital of the Chechnya region in southern Russia.
(Al Jazeera)
Who was on board?
The Embraer 190 aircraft, flight number J2-8243, carried 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 hospitalised, with many in critical condition. Many were pulled out from the wreckage, while some, according to first responders and video footage, dragged themselves out, bloodied.
Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev announced that 38 people had been killed.
Russian news agency Interfax 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” onboard after a bird strike, Russia’s aviation watchdog said on Telegram.
The plane had to divert from its original route because of heavy fog in Grozny, its intended destination, and make an emergency landing.
Commercial aviation-tracking websites recorded the flight travelling north along its scheduled route on the west coast before it disappeared. It later reappeared on the east coast, circling near Aktau airport before ultimately crashing.
“According to preliminary reports, the plane requested landing at an alternative airport before the accident … due to heavy 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, flying on the Baku-Grozny route, changed its course due to worsening weather conditions and began heading toward Aktau airport, where the crash occurred during landing”.
The nearest Russian airport, Makhachkala, was closed earlier in the day due to drone activity.
Strong GPS jamming 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 that there were multiple theories over what might 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 watch them. However, the reasons for the crash are not yet known to us,” the Azerbaijani president said. “There are various theories, but I believe it is premature to discuss them.”
What is the latest on the ground?
Emergency services have been actively responding to the situation.
Firefighters extinguished the blaze caused by the crash, while 150 emergency workers and medical teams, including specialist doctors flown in from Astana, are treating the injured.
Azerbaijan Airlines said it is suspending all its flights between Baku and Grozny, as well as Baku and Makhachkala until the investigation is concluded.
The airline has also set up a hotline for family members of the passengers 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. The Azerbaijani president, who was flying to Russia for a summit at the time, said he was informed of the crash while he was in midair.
“I immediately gave instructions for the plane to return to Baku,” Aliyev said in a statement issued by his office.
Kazakhstan emergency specialists work at the crash site of the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet near the western Kazakh city of Aktau [Handout/ Kazakhstan’s Emergency Situations Ministry via AFP]
What investigations are taking place?
Kazakh, Azerbaijani and Russian authorities said they were investigating the crash.
“An investigative team, led by the deputy prosecutor general of Azerbaijan, has been dispatched to Kazakhstan and is working at the crash site,” the Prosecutor General’s Office in Azerbaijan said in a statement.
Azerbaijan’s state news agency, Azertac, said that the team dispatched to Aktau for an “on-site investigation” also included Azerbaijan’s emergency situations minister and the vice president of Azerbaijan Airlines. Azertac said that 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 launched” and that the Azerbaijani public would be “regularly informed” about progress in 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 were getting the help they needed.
The investigations are focusing on potential technical problems and the closure of nearby airspace.
Embraer, the Brazilian manufacturer of the aircraft, has expressed its willingness to assist with the inquiries.
