An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane crashed near the Caspian Sea city of Aktau in Kazakhstan during an emergency landing on Wednesday, killing 38 people.
Rescuers reported 29 survivors from the 62 passengers and five crew members on the flight from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny in southern Russia.
Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 had flown hundreds of kilometres off its scheduled route when it crashed on the opposite shore of the Caspian Sea.
The Embraer 190 aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing approximately 3km from Aktau, Azerbaijan Airlines said. A video of the crash showed the plane descending rapidly before bursting into flames as it hit the seashore, with thick black smoke then rising. Bloodied and bruised passengers could be seen stumbling from a piece of the fuselage that had remained intact.
Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev said: “This is a great tragedy that has become a tremendous sorrow for the Azerbaijani people."
Kazakhstan's Emergency Ministry said fire services had put out the blaze and that the survivors, including two children, were being treated at a nearby hospital.
Russian news agency Interfax quoted medical workers as saying that four bodies have been recovered and emergency workers at the scene as saying that both pilots died in the crash, according to a preliminary assessment.
Authorities in Kazakhstan said they had begun looking into different possible versions of what had happened, including a technical problem, Interfax reported.
Russia's aviation watchdog said the crash may have been caused by a bird strike. "Preliminary: after a collision with birds, due to an emergency situation on board, its commander decided to 'go' to an alternate airfield – Aktau was chosen," it said on Telegram.
The crash site was hundreds of kilometres off the plane's scheduled route. Commercial aviation-tracking websites tracked the flight flying north on its scheduled route along the west coast before its flight path was no longer recorded. It then reappeared on the east coast, circling near Aktau airport, before crashing into the beach.
Officials did not immediately explain why it had crossed the sea, but the crash came shortly after drone strikes hit southern Russia. Drone activity has shut airports in the area in the past. An official at Makhachkala airport in Russia on the east coast of the Caspian, the airport closest to where the flight disappeared from tracking, told Reuters it had been closed to incoming traffic for several hours on Wednesday morning.
Authorities in two Russian regions adjacent to Chechnya, Ingushetia and North Ossetia, reported drone strikes on Wednesday morning.
Authorities in Kazakhstan said a government commission had been set up to investigate what had happened and its members ordered to fly to the site and ensure that the families of the dead and injured were getting the help they needed.
Kazakhstan would co-operate with Azerbaijan on the investigation, the government said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences, as did Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan, who decided to return home from Russia where he had been due to attend a summit on Wednesday, his office said.
President Sheikh Mohamed also sent condolences to President Aliyev.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, expressed his condolences and said some of those being treated in hospital were in an extremely serious condition.
