People at Grozny airport seek information about passengers on crashed plane in Kazakhstan

The relatives of Azerbaijani airliner passengers that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday morning gathered in Grozny airport - the final destination of the plane - to wait for information.

Some of them found out that their beloved ones survived from videos and photos circulating online.

"I just got a photo and video that he is alive and well, walks on his own. Everything is fine," the uncle of a plane passenger said to Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti.

The Azerbaijani airliner with 67 people onboard crashed Wednesday in the Kazakhstani city of Aktau, leaving at least 32 survivors, according to officials. More than 30 people are likely dead.

Kazakhstan's Emergency Ministry said in a Telegram statement that those on board included five crew. At least 29 have been hospitalized, the ministry told RIA Novosti.

Russian news agency Interfax quoted medical workers as saying that four bodies have been recovered and emergency workers at the scene as saying that both pilots, according to a preliminary assessment, died in the crash.

The Embraer 190 aircraft made an emergency landing 3 km from the city, Azerbaijan Airlines said earlier.

The plane was originally scheduled to travel from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus.

According to Azerbaijan Airlines, 37 passengers were Azerbaijani citizens. There were also 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhstani and three Kyrgyzstani citizens, it said.

RIA Novosti quoted Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, as saying that preliminary information showed that the pilot had chosen to divert to Aktau after a bird strike on the aircraft led to “an emergency situation on board”.

Flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24.com showed the aircraft making what appeared to be a figure-right once nearing the airport in Aktau, its altitude moving up and down substantially over the last minutes of the flight before impacting the ground.

FlightRadar24 separately said in an online post that the aircraft had faced “strong GPS jamming” which “ made the aircraft transmit bad ADS-B data”, referring to the information that allows flight-tracking websites to follow planes in flight. Russia has been blamed in the past for jamming GPS transmissions in the wider region.