Photo: AP
ASTANA: An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet with 67 people on board crashed on Wednesday in western Kazakhstan after veering from its scheduled route, officials said.
Azerbaijani authorities said 32 people had survived the crash of the Embraer 190 near the city of Aktau, an oil and gas hub on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea.
The plane was flying from the Azerbaijani capital Baku on the western shore of the Caspian to the city of Grozny in Chechnya in southern Russia.
“A plane doing the Baku-Grozny route crashed near the city of Aktau. It belongs to Azerbaijan Airlines,” the Kazakh transport ministry said on Telegram.
Azerbaijan Airlines, the country’s flag carrier, said the plane had 62 passengers and five crew on board.
It said the plane “made an emergency landing” around three kilometers from Aktau.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev canceled a planned visit to Russia for an informal summit of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a grouping of former Soviet nations.
The Kazakh transport ministry said the plane was carrying 37 nationals from Azerbaijan, six from Kazakhstan, three from Kyrgyzstan and 16 from Russia.
The office of Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general said: “According to available data, 32 people survived the crash.”
“We cannot disclose any investigation results at this time. All possible scenarios are being examined, and the necessary expert analyses are underway,” it said in a statement.
“An investigative team, led by the deputy prosecutor general of Azerbaijan, has been dispatched to Kazakhstan and is working at the crash site.”
