An Azerbaijani plane carrying 67 aircraft crashes, and more than 30 people are believed to have died

An Azerbaijani airliner carrying 62 passengers and five crew members crashed Wednesday near the Kazakh city of Aktau, killing more than 30 people, officials said.

The plane was on its way from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus.

The Kazakh Emergencies Ministry said in a statement on Telegram that those on board were five crew members. The ministry told the Russian RIA Novosti news agency that a total of 29 survivors, including two children, were taken to hospital.

The Russian Interfax news agency quoted medical workers as saying that four bodies had been recovered, and emergency workers at the scene said that the two pilots died in the accident, according to a preliminary assessment.

Azerbaijan Airlines said earlier that the Embraer 190 plane made an emergency landing three kilometers from the city.

The ministry initially said 25 people survived the accident, but later revised that number to 29 as the search and rescue operation at the accident site continued, bringing the presumed death toll down.

The Azerbaijan Prosecutor’s Office later reported that at least 32 people survived, adding that the number was not final. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said in a statement that some of them were in critical condition.

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

According to Azerbaijan Airlines, among those on board the plane were 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian citizens, six Kazakh citizens, and three Kyrgyz citizens.

The airline will suspend all flights from Baku to Russia’s Chechnya region until an investigation into the fatal accident is completed, Russia’s TASS news agency reported on Wednesday.

Bird strike, GPS jamming

RIA Novosti quoted the Russian Civil Aviation Authority, Rosaviatsia, as saying that preliminary information showed that the pilot chose to divert to Aktau after a bird collided with the plane led to an “emergency situation on board.”

Mobile phone footage circulated on the Internet showed the plane landing hard before crashing into the ground in the form of a fireball. Other footage showed part of the plane’s fuselage torn from the wings and the rest of the plane lying upside down in the grass. The footage matched the plane’s colors and registration number.

Some videos posted on social media showed survivors pulling other passengers away from the wreckage of the plane.

Flight tracking data from FlightRadar24.com showed that the plane taxied correctly once it approached the airport in Aktau, and its altitude moved up and down significantly during the final minutes of the flight before hitting the ground.

FlightRadar24 said separately in an online post that the plane experienced “strong GPS jamming” that “caused the plane to transmit poor ADS-B data,” referring to information that allows flight tracking websites to follow planes in flight.

Russia has been blamed in the past for jamming GPS transmissions in the wider region.

Azerbaijan Airlines said in a statement that it will keep the public updated and changed its social media banners to solid black.

The official Azerbaijani news agency AZERTAC said that an official delegation consisting of the Azerbaijani Minister of Emergency Situations, the country’s Deputy Prosecutor General and the Deputy President of Azerbaijan Airlines was sent to Aktau to conduct a “field investigation.”

The President’s press office stated that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who was traveling to St. Petersburg, Russia, returned to Azerbaijan upon hearing the news of the plane crash. Aliyev was scheduled to attend an informal meeting of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a bloc of former Soviet countries established after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Aliyev expressed his condolences to the families of the victims in a statement posted on social media. He wrote, “It is with great sadness that I extend my condolences to the families of the victims and wish a speedy recovery to the injured.”

He also signed a decree declaring December 26 a day of mourning in Azerbaijan.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with Aliyev and expressed his condolences.

Speaking during the CIS meeting in St. Petersburg, Putin also said that Russia’s Emergencies Ministry had sent a plane carrying equipment and medical personnel to Kazakhstan to help following the incident.

Kazakh and Azerbaijani authorities are investigating the incident. Embraer told The Associated Press in a statement that the company “stands ready to assist all relevant authorities.”