More than 20 passengers survived, while many others were feared dead after a Azerbaijan Airlines plane with over 60 people on board crashed near Aktau city in Kazakhstan. The incident was reported on Wednesday, citing the Kazakh Emergencies Ministry. The crash occurred near Aktau airport.
The Azerbaijan Airlines flight, an Embraer 190 with flight number 8243, was traveling from Baku to Grozny in Russia’s Chechnya but had been rerouted to Aktau due to dense fog at its original destination, according to Russian news agencies. The aircraft was carrying 62 passengers and five crew members.
Kazakh authorities confirmed that at least 25 passengers had survived, while the number of fatalities was still being determined. An Associated Press report suggested that 42 people might have died.
Footage shared on social media appeared to capture the moment the plane crashed, erupting into a fireball. Other visuals showed rescue workers at the crash site, attempting to save survivors from the wreckage.
The cause of the crash, which occurred approximately 3 km (1.8 miles) from Aktau city, is under investigation, with a technical fault among the possible reasons being considered. Kazakhstan’s emergencies ministry reported that firefighters had extinguished the blaze, and survivors were being treated at a nearby hospital.
In a separate plane crash in Brazil on Sunday, 10 people, including passengers and crew, were killed when a small aircraft collided with structures in a residential area of Gramado, a tourist town. The crash injured more than a dozen people on the ground, two of whom were critically hurt, according to Brazil’s Civil Defence Agency.
The plane reportedly struck the chimney of a home before hitting the second floor of a building and crashing into a mobile phone store. The passengers were believed to be members of the same family traveling to São Paulo state. The cause of the crash remains unclear.
