MOSCOW / ISTANBUL

At least 38 people were killed when an Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) flight crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau on Wednesday.

Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said during a news conference in Aktau that 38 people died and 29 were rescued.

According to a statement by AZAL on Telegram, 62 passengers and five crew members were on board the Embraer 190 aircraft, which crashed about 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from Aktau as it was heading from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to the city of Grozny in the Russian Republic of Chechnya.

The carrier later suspended flights between Baku and Grozny as well as those between Baku and the city of Makhachkala, the capital city of the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan.

Kazakhstan's Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement that 52 of its personnel and 11 units of equipment were dispatched to the crash site, where the plane had been ablaze.

It later said that 150 personnel and 45 units of equipment from Kazakhstan's emergency services were involved in search and rescue efforts.

Kanan Zeynalov, a spokesperson for Azerbaijan's Prosecutor General's Office, previously said at a news briefing in Baku that there were 32 survivors.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who cut short a visit to the Russian city of St. Petersburg, announced in a meeting with government officials that a commission had been formed to investigate the reasons behind the crash.

"The reasons for the crash are not yet known to us. There are various theories, but I believe it is premature to discuss them. The matter must be thoroughly investigated," Aliyev was quoted as saying in a statement by the Azerbaijani presidency.

Aliyev went on to issue a decree declaring Dec. 26 as a day of national mourning.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev also ordered an investigation into the crash, led by Bozumbayev and dispatched medical teams from the capital Astana to assist survivors.

AZAL told Azerbaijan's state news agency Azertac and Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency that preliminary findings pointed to a collision with birds as the cause of the crash.

Russian media said the plane was unable to land in Grozny due to a Ukrainian drone attack. The pilot redirected the flight to the city of Makhachkala but was deterred by fog, ultimately requesting to land in Aktau.

Later Wednesday, the head of the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Andriy Kovalenko, said on Telegram that the plane was reportedly shot down by a Russian air defense system.

"Russia was supposed to close the airspace over Grozny but did not do so. The plane was damaged by the Russians and sent to Kazakhstan instead of making an emergency landing in Grozny and saving people's lives," he added.