A commercial airplane with 67 people onboard crashed Wednesday in Kazakhstan.

The Azerbaijan Airlines flight, traveling from Azerbaijan to Russia, crashed in the city of Aktau.

According to BBC, the airline caught fire and attempted to make an emergency landing.

The airline told the outlet that the plane was en route to Grozny in Russia but diverted due to fog.

Footage shows the aircraft hurtling towards the ground and bursting into flames upon impact.

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Per BBC:

The airline said the plane “made an emergency landing” about 3km (1.9 miles) from Aktau.

It took off from the Azerbaijani capital Baku at 03:55 GMT on Wednesday, and crashed around 06:28, data from flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed.

Reports from Russian media say the aircraft collided with a flock of birds before crashing, but this has not yet been confirmed.

Officials from the countries involved have stated different numbers for those who were on board and for those who survived.

The airline said 62 passengers and 5 crew members were on board the Embraer 190 but other reports put the total at 72. The reported number of survivors ranges from 28 to 32.

Those on board were mostly Azerbaijani nationals, but there were also some passengers from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

“Investigators are scratching their heads after discovering unexplained breaches on the exterior of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 35 people. Was it sabotage or structural failure? The cause remains unclear as authorities dig in,” Mario Nawfal wrote.

NBC News reports:

The Russian state news agency Ria Novosti reported that the passengers were 37 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russians, 6 Kazakh citizens and 3 Kyrgyz citizens, citing the Kazakh Transport Ministry.

The flight was en route from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny in Russia’s Chechnya region but was diverted to the Russian city of Makhachkala, about 100 miles east of Gronzny, because of fog, the press service of the Grozny airport told the Russian state news agency Tass.

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The Embraer 190 aircraft made an emergency landing approximately 1.8 miles away from the city of Aktau, according to a statement released on Telegram by Azerbaijan Airlines.

A preliminary investigation found the plane collided with birds and was diverted to Aktau because of an emergency on board, according to a statement issued on Telegram by Russia’s aviation authority, Rosaviatsia.

The investigation is ongoing and additional information regarding the incident will be provided, Azerbaijan Airlines said in a statement released on Telegram.

There was a fire at the crash site but this has been “completely extinguished,” the Kazakh Emergencies Ministry said.

 

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