Unverified cellphone footage emerged showing the aircraft descending fast before bursting into a fireball as it collided into the ground, December 24, 2024. The video showed a plane with matching colors and registration numbers to that of flight J2-8243.
Flight J2-8243 departed from the Azerbaijan capital of Baku and was headed to Grozny, Russia in the North Caucus when it crashed hundreds of miles off course close to the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.
It was transporting 62 passengers and five crew members.
Some 32 survivors — including two children — have been rescued and were hospitalized, while four bodies were recovered and the search continued for the remaining passengers among the wreckage of the Embraer 190 passenger jet.
Both pilots died in the crash, according to medical workers who spoke to local news agency Interfax. And some of the survivors were in critical condition, Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
On board were 37 people from Azerbaijan,16 from Russia, six from Kazakhstan and three from Kyrgyzstan, according to Azerbaijan Airlines.
A bird strike may have been to blame for "an emergency situation on board" that prompted the pilot to divert several hundred miles off course toward Kazakhstan's Aktau, according to the Russian civil aviation authority.
The crash unfolded in the wake of a drone strike in southern Russia. Drone movements have forced local airports to close before and at least one area airport was closed Wednesday morning.
© ReutersFour bodies have been recovered from the crash site of an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet near the western Kazakh city of Aktau on Dec. 25, 2024.
Other videos showed part of the fuselage broken away from the wings while the rest of the plane was on the grass. And wounded passengers could be seen stumbling out of one piece of the fuselage that was still intact while some attempted to assist other survivors.
Flight-tracking data shows that the plane's altitude went dramatically up and down in the minutes before it smashed into the ground.
Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree declaring Thursday a day of mourning in the country.
"It is with deep sadness that I express my condolences to the families of the victims and wish a speedy recovery to those injured," the president said in a social media statement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin gave his condolences to Aliyev in a phone call, according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
Emergency specialists work at the crash site of an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet near the western Kazakh city of Aktau on Dec. 25, 2024. Kazakhstan's emergency situations ministry/AFP via Getty Images
Putin also said Russia had sent aid including equipment and medical workers to help Kazakhstan address the disaster.
Officials from all three countries are investigating the cause of the crash and Embraer told the Associated Press it was "ready to assist all relevant authorities."
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....puzzlingly diverts to Aktau because of Fog in Grozny, yet weather reports reveal that there was no fog so could have been a drone attack, then gps jamming lost the plane for over 2 hrs until it reappeared nearing Aktau when the plane was hit by birds that damaged the oxygen tank and caused a loss of control that led to it crashing where the Tail section glided 500 meters from the crash site and mysterious damage could seen on the stabilizers.
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