Azerbaijan is marking a day of mourning after an area airline’s passenger airplane crashed off the coast of the Caspian Sea.
Authorities throughout Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia are investigating the emergency touchdown on Wednesday morning that killed a minimum of 38 individuals.
Right here’s what we all know in regards to the crash.
The place did the passenger airplane crash?
The airplane crashed about 3km (1.8 miles) from town of Aktau in Kazakhstan, on the japanese shore of the Caspian Sea.
It was en route from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny, capital of the Chechnya area in southern Russia.
Who was on board?
The Embraer 190 plane, flight quantity J2-8243, carried 62 passengers and 5 crew members.
In accordance with Kazakh officers, the individuals on board have been residents of 4 totally different international locations:
- 42 Azerbaijani residents
- 16 Russian residents
- 6 Kazakh residents
- 3 Kyrgyz residents
What number of of them survived?
There are 32 survivors, together with two youngsters, who’ve been hospitalised, with many in vital situation. Many have been pulled out from the wreckage, whereas some, based on first responders and video footage, dragged themselves out, bloodied.
Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev introduced that 38 individuals had been killed.
Russian information company Interfax quoted emergency employees on the scene as saying that each pilots, based on a preliminary evaluation, died within the crash.
Why did the airplane crash?
The crash was reportedly resulting from an “emergency state of affairs” onboard after a chicken strike, Russia’s aviation watchdog stated on Telegram.
The airplane needed to divert from its authentic route due to heavy fog in Grozny, its meant vacation spot, and make an emergency touchdown.
Business aviation-tracking web sites recorded the flight travelling north alongside its scheduled route on the west coast earlier than it disappeared. It later reappeared on the east coast, circling close to Aktau airport earlier than finally crashing.
“In accordance with preliminary stories, the airplane requested touchdown at another airport earlier than the accident … resulting from heavy fog in Grozny,” Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova reported from Moscow.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated in a press release that “based on the knowledge supplied to me, the AZAL airline airplane, flying on the Baku-Grozny route, modified its course resulting from worsening climate situations and started heading towards Aktau airport, the place the crash occurred throughout touchdown”.
The closest Russian airport, Makhachkala, was closed earlier within the day resulting from drone exercise.
Robust GPS jamming within the area, which has been linked to previous incidents, could have additional difficult navigation and contributed to the crash, based on a web based put up by FlightRadar24.
Aliyev acknowledged that there have been a number of theories over what may need induced the crash, however cautioned in opposition to hypothesis.
“There are movies of the airplane crash accessible within the media and on social networks, and everybody can watch them. Nevertheless, the explanations for the crash are usually not but identified to us,” the Azerbaijani president stated. “There are numerous theories, however I imagine it’s untimely to debate them.”
What’s the newest on the bottom?
Emergency companies have been actively responding to the state of affairs.
Firefighters extinguished the blaze attributable to the crash, whereas 150 emergency employees and medical groups, together with specialist docs flown in from Astana, are treating the injured.
Azerbaijan Airways stated it’s suspending all its flights between Baku and Grozny, in addition to Baku and Makhachkala till the investigation is concluded.
The airline has additionally arrange a hotline for members of the family of the passengers and posted all their names on its social media pages.
Aliyev additionally signed a decree declaring December 26 a day of mourning within the nation. The Azerbaijani president, who was flying to Russia for a summit on the time, stated he was knowledgeable of the crash whereas he was in midair.
“I instantly gave directions for the airplane to return to Baku,” Aliyev stated in a press release issued by his workplace.
What investigations are going down?
Kazakh, Azerbaijani and Russian authorities stated they have been investigating the crash.
“An investigative workforce, led by the deputy prosecutor common of Azerbaijan, has been dispatched to Kazakhstan and is working on the crash web site,” the Prosecutor Normal’s Workplace in Azerbaijan stated in a press release.
Azerbaijan’s state information company, Azertac, stated that the workforce dispatched to Aktau for an “on-site investigation” additionally included Azerbaijan’s emergency conditions minister and the vice chairman of Azerbaijan Airways. Azertac stated that the airplane’s black field – a flight recorder that investigators use to find out the causes of aviation accidents – had been discovered.
Aliyev, in his assertion, stated {that a} “felony case has been launched” and that the Azerbaijani public could be “repeatedly knowledgeable” about progress within the investigation.
Kazakhstan has fashioned a authorities fee to look at the reason for the catastrophe and be sure that the households of the lifeless and injured have been getting the assistance they wanted.
The investigations are specializing in potential technical issues and the closure of close by airspace.
Embraer, the Brazilian producer of the plane, has expressed its willingness to help with the inquiries.
