A purported video circulating on social media claimed to show the exact moment when an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet crashed on Wednesday in western Kazakhstan.
The video was shared by RT India on X. It showed the plane crashing down and bursting into flames as it hit the ground, resulting in huge plumes of thick black smoke. Bloodied and bruised passengers could be seen stumbling from a piece of the fuselage that had remained intact.
The flight from the capital, Baku, to Grozny in Russia, crashed in Kazakhstan, the Kazakh transport ministry said. According to officials, there were 62 passengers and five crew members on the plane. As many as 27 people survived the crash, Kazakhstan authorities were quoted by Reuters as saying.
“A plane doing the Baku-Grozny route crashed near the city of Aktau. It belongs to Azerbaijan Airlines,” the ministry said on Telegram.
Azerbaijan Airlines said the Embraer 190 aircraft, with flight number J2-8243, “made an emergency landing” around three kilometres from Aktau, an oil and gas hub on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea.
Russian news agencies said the plane had been rerouted due to fog in Grozny.
The country’s emergency situations ministry said its personnel were putting out a fire at the site.
“Information about casualties is currently being clarified but, according to preliminary information, there are survivors,” it said.
Reason behind the Kazakhstan crash
Authorities in Kazakhstan said they had begun looking into different possible versions of what had happened, including a technical problem, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.
Russia’s aviation watchdog said in a statement that preliminary information suggested the pilot had decided to make an emergency landing after a bird strike.
Following the crash, Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, was returning home from Russia where he had been due to attend a summit on Wednesday, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, expressed his condolences in a statement and said those being treated in hospital were in an extremely serious condition and that he and others would pray for their rapid recovery.