The death toll has risen to 38 after an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane crashed near Kazakhstan's Aktau city on Wednesday, Al Jazeera reported. The plane, which had 62 passengers and five crew members on board, crashed after being forced to make an emergency landing about three kilometres from Aktau. "The situation is not very good, 38 dead," Kazakhstan's Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said as quoted by Russia's Interfax news agency, Al Jazeera reported.

The Embraer 190 aircraft was en route from Azerbaijan's capital Baku to Grozny, a Russian city in the North Caucasus. Azerbaijan's prosecutor general's office earlier said that 32 out of the 67 people on board survived the crash. "We cannot disclose any investigation results at this time. All possible scenarios are being examined, and the necessary expert analyses are underway," it said in a statement, as reported by Al Jazeera.