At least 29 people are believed to have survived after a passenger aircraft crashed and burst into flames near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.
The Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 jet was travelling from Baku to Grozny in the Chechnya region of Russia when, according to the airline, it was forced to make an emergency landing after a collision with a flock of birds.
Kazakhstan’s emergencies ministry said there were 62 passengers and five crew members on board.
“There are 25 preliminary survivors, of whom 22 were taken to hospital,” the ministry said before updating the number to 29.
Emergency services extinguished the fire and doctors were working at the scene, about 1.8 miles from Aktau. Russian media reported that the aircraft had been rerouted because of fog in Grozny, the capital of the Chechen Republic.
Video purporting to be of the crash showed a plane hitting the ground before being engulfed in flames.
The Embraer aircraft can carry just over 100 people. Officials are working to clarify the list of passengers.
At least 150 emergency workers and 45 vehicles were involved in the response, including national and state fire services, Kazakhstan’s emergencies ministry said.
Azerbaijan Airlines said in a statement on its Telegram channel: “The Embraer 190 aircraft operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, flight numbered J2-8243 on the Baku-Grozny route, made an emergency landing approximately three kilometres near the city of Aktau.”
Ramzan Kadyrov, the authoritarian leader of Chechnya who has supported Vladimir Putin’s war effort in Ukraine, said that there were 17 Russians on board.
He posted on Telegram: “I express my condolences to the relatives of the deceased passengers of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Aktau while en route from Baku to Grozny. It is reported that there are 25 survivors. We pray to the Almighty for their recovery.”
The crash prompted Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s president, to return home early from St Petersburg in Russia, where he had been due to attend a summit on Wednesday.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, said: “Putin has already called him and expressed his condolences in connection with the crash.”
