An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet crashed in the Kazakhstani city of Aktau, killing at least 38 people, authorities have said.
Kazakhstan’s emergency ministry said that 67 people, including five crew, were on board the plane which was on route to Russia.
Azerbaijan Airlines said the Embraer 190 aircraft made an emergency landing 3km from the Aktau, an oil and gas hub on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea.
Footage of the crash showed the plane making a steep descent before smashing into the ground in a fireball.
Other footage showed part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings and the rest of the aircraft lying upside down in the grass.
Injured passengers could be later seen stumbling and dragging each other from the intact piece of fuselage.
Kazakhstan authorities said at least 22 or the 29 survivors – including two children – had been taken to hospital.
Kazakhstan authorities said fire services had put out the blaze and survivors – including three children – were being treated at a nearby hospital.
The plane was flying from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan to Grozny, the capital of Russia’s Chechnya in the north Caucasus.
Azerbaijan Airlines said on Wednesday it is suspending all its flights from Baku to Russia’s Chechnya region until its investigation is finished.
The plane had flown hundreds of miles off its scheduled route after what Russia’s aviation watchdog said was an emergency that may have been caused by a bird strike.
Officials did not immediately explain why it had crossed the sea, but the crash came shortly after drone strikes hit southern Russia.
Drone activity has shut airports in the area in the past and the nearest Russian airport on the plane’s flight path was closed on Wednesday morning.
According to Azerbaijan Airlines, 37 passengers were Azerbaijani citizens. There were also 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhstani and three Kyrgyzstani citizens, it said.
The bodies of the dead are still being recovered.
One video showed a man praying and filming a message for his wife as the plane began to quickly descend. The clips cut to the aftermath as the man and a nearby woman call out for help from the broken plane.
Russian news agencies said the plane had been rerouted due to fog in Grozny.
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.
Following the crash, Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, said he is returning home from Russia where he had been due to attend a summit on Wednesday, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.
Vladimir Putin has expressed his deep sympathies to Mr Aliyev following the crash, Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, said.
“Unfortunately, Azerbaijan’s president Aliyev was forced to leave St Petersburg. Putin has already called him and expressed his condolences in connection with the crash of the Azerbaijani plane in Aktau,” Mr Peskov said.
“We deeply sympathise with those who lost their relatives and friends in this plane crash and wish a speedy recovery to all those who managed to survive,” he added.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, expressed his condolences in a statement and said those being treated in hospital were in an extremely serious condition and that he would pray for their rapid recovery.
Azerbaijan’s state news agency, Azertac, said the emergency situations minister, the country’s deputy general prosecutor, and the vice president of Azerbaijan Airlines had been dispatched to Aktau to conduct an “on-site investigation”.
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