# Azerbaijan Airlines crash near Aktau kills at least 38 after Grozny diversion
A passenger jet carrying 67 people crashed near Aktau on December 25 after diverting from Grozny, killing at least 38 and prompting investigations in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
By NeoTechNews Desk
Event date: 2024-12-25
An Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 carrying 67 people crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau on December 25 after making an emergency landing attempt, killing at least 38 people, according to Al Jazeera reporting from the scene and official statements cited in the article. The aircraft was flying from Baku to Grozny when it went down about three kilometres from Aktau. Kazakhstan’s deputy prime minister was quoted as saying 38 people had died, while Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general said 32 of the 67 people on board had survived.
The crash quickly became an international investigation. Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general said all possible scenarios were being examined and that a team led by the deputy prosecutor general had been sent to Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan said a government commission would investigate and help the families of the dead and injured. Azerbaijan Airlines said it was suspending flights from Baku to Russia’s Chechnya region until the inquiry concluded. The airline also opened a hotline for families, underscoring how quickly the disaster crossed from an air-crash scene into a consular and diplomatic response.
The cause remained uncertain in the source packet, but several early possibilities were already in circulation. A reporter in Moscow said preliminary reports pointed to a request to land at an alternative airport because of heavy fog in Grozny. Russia’s aviation watchdog said initial information suggested the pilots may have tried an emergency landing after a bird strike. Those explanations were not treated as final by investigators, and the Azerbaijani prosecutor’s office said openly that it could not disclose conclusions yet. That uncertainty is central to the report: the crash was severe enough to kill dozens, but the exact trigger had not yet been established.
Passengers on board came from several countries, including Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. That detail widened the human impact and helped explain why responses came from both sides of the Caspian. The crash site near Aktau lies on the opposite shore from Azerbaijan and Russia, so even the geography made the incident a regional rather than purely domestic event. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev cut short a visit to Russia, and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov expressed condolences to those who lost relatives and friends. Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, also issued a statement of sympathy.
The airline said the flight had been diverted and that family members could call its hotline for information. That small detail mattered because it showed the response moving from investigation to identification and assistance at the same time. When a commercial flight crashes far from its scheduled route, the first challenge is often not just technical but logistical: who was on board, where are the survivors, and how quickly can relatives be told what happened?
For now, the verified facts are stark. A passenger plane on a Baku-to-Grozny route crashed near Aktau after an emergency diversion, dozens were killed, more than 30 survived, and investigators in two countries were still trying to understand why the flight came down.
