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New Delhi:
Thirty-two people survived the initial impact of a plane crash in Kazakhstan's Aqtau city Wednesday afternoon. Twenty-two, including a 11-year-old girl and a 16-year-old teen, were hospitalised.
Kazakhstan's Ministry of Emergencies said there were at least 30 confirmed deaths. The plane - an Azerbaijan Airlines jet carrying 62 passengers and five crew - was flying from Baku to Russia's Grozny.
Fog at the destination caused it to be re-routed to Aqtau, which is around 1,800 km away. However, as the plane approached Aqtau International Airport an (as yet) unspecified crisis triggered an emergency landing request. Tragically the aircraft, an Embraer ERJ-190, never made it that far.
Initial reports suggest the plane was hit by a flock of birds, causing a possible steering malfunction and/or damaging one engine. The pilots tried to regain speed and altitude but the controls failed.
It crashed around three km from the airport; horrific videos on social media picked up the plane in a nosedive, losing altitude rapidly, slamming into the ground, and bursting into flames.
READ | Azerbaijani Plane Requested Emergency Landing Before Crashing
The Kazakh Transport Ministry said 37 of the plane's passengers were from Azerbaijan, six were from Kazakhstan, three were from Kyrgyzstan, and 16 were from Russia.
Among the many videos being shared online is one that zooms in on the clearly-struggling plane; in the video, posted by BNO News Live, the plane appears to jerk up and down mid-air a few times, and even seemed to regain control momentarily, gaining altitude, before it all went horribly wrong.
In the 36 seconds of the two-and-a-half minute video the plane goes into a steep dive, tilting to its right as it hits the ground, bursts into flames, and breaks into pieces.
This video shows what happened in the minutes before the plane crash in Kazakhstan. The plane repeatedly went up and down before crashing. pic.twitter.com/dQ0H1c9R0R
— BNO News Live (@BNODesk) December 25, 2024The plane's course on online flight tracking website Flight Radar showed it crossing the Caspian Sea, veering from its normal route and then circling over the area where it eventually crashed.
Pictures from the crash site revealed a horrific scene - pieces of the fuselage and tail were scattered across a remote and dusty field distinguished by a dirt road zig-zagging through it.
A video shared by Kazakh's ORDA news agency showed some survivors being helped out from under the wreckage; one shot showed an elderly man stumbling away with blood on his head, while another showed a young woman in a white coat wandering around the wreckage in apparent shock.
In the same video a young boy - his jacket stained with blood and dirt - is helped by an emergency services personnel. Meanwhile, in the distance the other half of the plane can be seen, still burning.
The plane exploded into a ball of fire as it hit the ground, and that blaze kept burning for a while after the impact. Kazakh emergency personnel finally managed to put out the fire.
Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev cut short a visit to Russia, where he was due to attend an informal summit of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a grouping of former Soviet nations.
Azerbaijan's First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva, who is also the country's first Vice President, said she was "deeply saddened by the news of the tragic loss of lives in the plane crash near Aktau".
With input from AFP
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