Azerbaijan passenger plane crashes in Kazakhstan

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Authorities says 14 survivors hospitalised after Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashes near the city of Aktau.

A passenger plane flying from Azerbaijan to Russia crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, the Central Asian country’s Emergencies Ministry said in a statement.

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.

Twenty-seven people, including three children, survived the crash and had been hospitalised, according to health officials.

The Emergencies Ministry said fire services had put out the blaze.

“According to preliminary reports, the plane requested landing at an alternative airport before the accident … due to heavy fog in Grozny,” Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova reported from Moscow.

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.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has cut short a visit to Russia – where he was due to attend a summit on Wednesday – Russia’s RIA news agency reported.

Authorities in Kazakhstan said they had begun looking into different possible versions of what had happened, including a technical problem, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.

More to follow.