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By Maria Gordeeva, Gleb Stolyarov and Nailia Bagirova
ASTANA/TBILISI/BAKU (Reuters) – An Embraer passenger jet en route from Azerbaijan to Russia crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau on Wednesday, killing 62 passengers and five crew members, Kazakh officials said, adding that 32 survivors were rescued.
Azerbaijan Airlines Flight J2-8243 flew hundreds of kilometers from its intended destination and crashed on the opposite shore of the Caspian Sea, in what Russia’s aviation watchdog said was an emergency caused by a bird strike.
Officials did not immediately say why they crossed the sea, but the crash happened after a drone strike in southern Russia. The drone activity shut down airports in the area, and a nearby Russian airport on the plane’s flight path was closed Wednesday morning.
Video of the crash shows the plane descending rapidly and billowing thick black smoke as it hits the beach before bursting into flames. Bloodied and injured passengers are seen stumbling over a piece of the wreckage that remained intact.
Reuters was able to confirm from visible signs that the video was filmed on the Caspian coast near Aktau.
Kazakhstan’s Emergencies Ministry said in a statement that firefighters had extinguished the fire and that survivors, including two children, were being treated at a nearby hospital. He was recovering the bodies of the dead.
The Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 jet was flying from Baku to Grozny, the capital of the southern Russian state of Chechnya, but was forced to make an emergency landing 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from Aktau in Kazakhstan.
“Situation: after a collision with a bird, due to an emergency situation on board, the commander decided to ‘go’ to an alternative airport – the sputum was chosen,” the Russian aviation watchdog said in a telegram.
The Russian airport on the flight path is closed.
Aktau is located on the shores of the Caspian Sea opposite Azerbaijan and Russia. Commercial aviation tracking websites tracked the northbound flight on a scheduled route along the west coast before the flight path was recorded. It then reappeared on the east coast, hovering near Aktu Airport before crashing to the coast.
Authorities in two Russian regions bordering Chechnya, Ingushetia and North Ossetia, reported drone strikes Wednesday morning.
An official at Russia’s Makhachkala airport on the eastern shore of the Caspian, close to where the flight disappeared, told Reuters it was closed to incoming traffic for several hours on Wednesday morning. Reuters could not immediately contact officials at Grozny airport.
Kazakh officials have set up a government commission to investigate the incident, and its members have been flown to the scene to ensure that the families of the dead and the injured are getting the help they need.
Kazakhstan will cooperate with Azerbaijan in the investigation, the government said.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has expressed his grief over President Vladimir Putin’s decision to return home from Russia where he was attending a summit on Wednesday, his office said.
In a statement, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, expressed his condolences, saying some of those being treated in hospital are in critical condition and praying for his and others’ speedy recovery.
