In what is coming as a really sad development, an Azerbaijan Airlines jet conveying passengers from the Kazakhstan capital, Baku, to Grozny, Russia has crashed on Christmas day.
The incident happened in western Kazakhstan, the Kazakh transport ministry said on Wednesday.
Flight number J2-8243, an Embraer 190 aircraft with 62 passengers and five crew on board, was forced to make an emergency landing about 3km (1.8 miles) from Aktau.
Aljazeera reported that Twenty-eight people, including three children, survived the crash and had been hospitalised, according to health officials. Four bodies have been recovered.
Azerbaijan Airlines, that country’s flag carrier, said the Embraer 190 had “made an emergency landing” around two miles from Aktau, an oil and gas hub on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea.
The Emergencies Ministry said fire services had put out the blaze.
Passengers on the plane included citizens from Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Shapovalova added.
Russia’s aviation watchdog said in a statement that preliminary information suggested the pilot had decided to make an emergency landing after a bird strike.
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