An Embraer passenger jet crashed near Aktau, Kazakhstan, on Wednesday, resulting in the deaths of 38 people, according to the Central Asian country’s Transport Ministry. Flight J2-8243 was en route from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Chechnya in Russia’s North Caucasus region. The aircraft attempted an emergency landing approximately three kilometers from Aktau. Twenty-nine survivors, including children, were treated at local hospitals.
The ministry said the cause of the crash is under investigation. After the crash, Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, cut short his trip to Russia for an informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a grouping of former Soviet nations. He declared Thursday a day of national mourning.
It is unclear why the plane, which was carrying 62 passengers and five crew members, diverted from its scheduled route to land in Kazakhstan. But weather conditions, specifically fog in Grozny, prompted the pilot to change course.
The plane flew hundreds of miles off its scheduled route from Azerbaijan to Russia to crash on the opposite shore of the Caspian Sea, about 500 kilometers from the intended destination. The plane also crossed over an area of southern Russia that Moscow has recently defended against Ukrainian drone attacks, which might have disrupted its radar systems.
Unverified video footage circulating online showed the plane plunging towards the ground and bursting into a fiery ball of flames. It appeared to be in a steep descent, and the wings were ripped off the fuselage. The wreckage was surrounded by thick, black smoke and bloody bodies.
Azerbaijan Airlines is the country’s flag carrier. It was formed from a regional branch of Aeroflot shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It inherited a fleet of Soviet-era aircraft but has gradually replaced them with more modern Western planes. Its website says the company is one of the largest private air carriers in the world, with a fleet of more than 100 aircraft.
The plane crashed near the city of Aktau, which sits on the eastern edge of the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan’s Transport Ministry said the pilot sent a distress signal at 10:50 local time.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that President Vladimir Putin called Aliyev on Wednesday to express his condolences. After the crash, the president canceled his attendance at the CIS summit in St Petersburg and returned to Azerbaijan, where he declared a day of mourning.
