MIAMI, United States. – A passenger plane from Azerbaijan fell this Wednesday near the city of Aktau, in Kazakhstanleaving a balance of at least 38 fatalities and 29 injured, confirmed the Kazakh deputy prime minister, Kanat Bozumbayev, according to the CNN report.
Among the survivors rescued from the rubble are two children and 11 people in critical condition.
The aircraft, identified as Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243, was en route from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny, in the Russian region of Chechnya. According to Bozumbayev, the accident occurred about three kilometers from Aktau, when the pilot attempted an emergency landing. According to the preliminary report from the Ministry of Transport of Kazakhstan, there were 67 occupants on board: 62 passengers and five crew members.
“The bodies are in poor condition, most burned, all collected,” declared the deputy prime minister, who also reported that the victims were taken to the morgue for identification. Likewise, he confirmed the existence of a single, still unidentified survivor: “She is unconscious, has no documents and is in the hospital.”
The Ministry of Emergency Situations of Kazakhstan reported that the device was on fire when rescue teams arrived, who managed to extinguish the fire and evacuate the injured. Images captured at the scene show wreckage of the aircraft engulfed in smoke and shocked passengers searching for help in the rubble.
Elmira, a volunteer who collaborated in the rescue efforts, told Radio Free Europe: “The front of the plane was on fire. We rescue the survivors. Their bodies were covered in blood. They cried. “Everyone was asking for help.” She added, moved, that a girl begged her to find her mother, who had been trapped in the wreckage.
The Russian aviation control body indicated as a preliminary hypothesis a collision with a bird, which would have forced the pilot to make an emergency landing. However, the reason why the aircraft was flying over the vicinity of the sea, far from its usual route, has not yet been specified.
According to Kazakh authorities, a government commission will investigate the details of the incident. “Instructions have been given to ensure a thorough investigation into the causes of the accident and to provide priority assistance to the families of the deceased and injured,” the Government of Kazakhstan reported. In the same sense, the Azerbaijani airline indicated that it will offer additional information as soon as possible.
