35 people were killed after a passenger plane carrying 67 people crashed in Kazakhstan, the country’s transport ministry said on Wednesday.
The country's emergency ministry said there were at least 32 survivors.
Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 was en route from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to Grozny in Russia. Reports say it was diverted because of fog.
The plane caught fire as it attempted to make an emergency landing near the city of Aktau.
There were 62 passengers and five crew members on the plane out of which 32 people, including an 11-year-old girl and a 16-year-old teen, have been hospitalised, the ministry said.
A video showed the aircraft swiftly losing altitude. Seconds after it seems to attempt to land, a huge fireball erupts.
The flight took off from Baku at 03:55 GMT on Wednesday, and crashed around 06:28, reports said.
“The passengers included 37 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian citizens, 6 Kazakh citizens, and 3 Kyrgyz citizens,” Azerbaijan Airlines wrote on its X handle.
The airlines later released the full list of passenger names on the flight, along with hotline numbers for the families of those onboard.
Unverified video footage showed emergency services putting out a fire and pulling people out of the wreckage.
The government has launched an investigation into the cause of the accident.
Early reports said that a bird strike was caused by a bird strike, as said by Kazakhstan’s Transport Ministry and Russia’s aviation watchdog, the Embraer 190 aircraft suffered control and backup system failures after colliding with a flock of birds.
Azerbaijan Airlines confirmed that the plane attempted an emergency landing before crashing near Aktau
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