Azerbaijan Airlines halts flights to Chechnya pending crash probe

Azerbaijan Airlines is suspending all its flights from Baku to Chechnya region in Russia until an investigation into a fatal crash involving one of its planes is finished, Russia's state TASS news agency cited the company saying on Wednesday.

An Embraer passenger jet flying from Azerbaijan to Russia crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday with 62 passengers and five crew on board, Kazakh authorities announced, saying 32 survivors had been rescued.

Kazakhstan's Emergency Ministry said in a Telegram statement that those onboard included five crew.

Another 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, according to a preliminary assessment, died in the crash.

The Embraer 190 aircraft made an emergency landing 3 kilometres from the city, Azerbaijan Airlines said earlier.

'Bird strike' led to 'emergency situation'

The Prosecutor General's Office in Azerbaijan later reported that at least 32 people survived the crash, adding that the number wasn't final. Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that some of them were in critical condition.

The number of survivors could mean that over 30 people may be dead.

According to Kazakh officials, those aboard the plane included 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakh and three Kyrgyz citizens, it said.

RIA Novosti quoted Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, as saying that preliminary information showed that the pilot had chosen to divert to Kazakhstan's Aktau after a bird strike on the aircraft led to "an emergency situation on board".

Mobile phone footage circulating online appeared to show the aircraft making a steep descent before smashing into the ground in a fireball. Other footage showed part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings and the rest of the aircraft, lying upside in the grass. The footage corresponded to the plane’s colours and its registration number.

Some of the videos posted on social media showed survivors dragging fellow passengers away from the wreckage of the plane.

'On-site investigation'

Flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24.com showed the aircraft making what appeared to be a figure-right once nearing the airport in Aktau, its altitude moving up and down substantially over the last minutes of the flight before impacting the ground.

Azerbaijan’s state news agency, Azertac, said that an official delegation consisting of Azerbaijan’s emergency situations minister, the country’s deputy general prosecutor, and the vice president of Azerbaijan Airlines had been dispatched to Aktau to conduct an “on-site investigation”.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who had been travelling to Russia, returned to Azerbaijan on hearing news of the crash, the president's press service said.

Aliyev was due to attend an informal meeting of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a bloc of former Soviet countries founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in St. Petersburg.

Aliyev expressed his condolences to the families of the victims in a statement on social media. "It is with deep sadness that I express my condolences to the families of the victims and wish a speedy recovery to those injured," he wrote.