According to Azerbaijan Airlines, 37 passengers were Azerbaijani citizens. There were also 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhstani and three Kyrgyzstani citizens.
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An Azerbaijan Airlines crashed on Wednesday morning in the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, killing 38 of the 67 on board the Embraer 190, according to officials.
Euronews has obtained information from official sources linked to the crash investigation stating that while nearing the Russian city of Grozny — the flight’s destination — surviving passengers heard an explosion followed by what looked like shrapnel hitting the plane and damaging the fuselage.
The information obtained by Euronews corresponds with a news report from Azerbaijan-based international news channel AnewZ, which quotes a Russian military blogger who claims that “the damage to the aircraft suggests that plane may have been accidentally struck by an air-defence missile system”.
Grozny is heavily defended, as Chechnya and Ramzan Kadyrov’s fighters remain essential to the Kremlin in Russia's ongoing full-scale invasion of its western neighbour, making the Chechen capital a potential target for Ukraine's drones.
If confirmed, the incident would correlate with the 2014 downing of the MH17 airliner by Russian-backed forces in the Donbas, also with a surface-to-air missile.
Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general’s office said previously that 32 of the 67 people on board the plane had survived. However, the latest death toll brings the number of survivors to 29.
Kazakstan's emergency ministry initially said 25 people survived the crash, later revising that number to 27, 28 and 29 as the search and rescue operation continued at the site of the crash. All survivors, including two children, have been hospitalised.
Flight 8432 travelling from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to Grozny made an emergency landing some 3 kilometres from Aktau after reportedly colliding with a flock of birds, according to reports from the airline.
According to Azerbaijan Airlines, 37 passengers were Azerbaijani citizens. There were also 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhstani and three Kyrgyzstani citizens.
Flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24 showed the aircraft making what appeared to be a figure-eight once nearing the airport in Aktau. Its altitude moved up and down substantially over the last minutes of the flight before impacting the ground.
FlightRadar24 separately said in an online post that the aircraft had faced “strong GPS jamming,” which “made the aircraft transmit bad ADS-B data,” referring to the information that allows flight-tracking websites to follow planes in flight.
Social media videos gathered by AnewZ news channel appear to show the aircraft struggling to make an emergency landing and breaking up in a fireball as it hits the ground.
Speaking at a news conference, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that it was too soon to speculate on the reasons behind the crash but said that the weather had forced the plane to change from its planned course.
“The information provided to me is that the plane changed its course between Baku and Grozny due to worsening weather conditions and headed to Aktau airport, where it crashed upon landing,” he said.
Embraer did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Wednesday morning. In a statement, Azerbaijan Airlines said it would keep members of the public updated and changed its social media banners to solid black.