An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet crashed on Wednesday near the city of Aktau in western Kazakhstan, leaving 35 people feared dead, officials said. The Embraer 190 aircraft was carrying 67 people, including 62 passengers and five crew members.

Azerbaijani authorities confirmed that 32 people survived the crash. The plane, which was en route from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya in southern Russia, went down approximately three kilometers (1.9 miles) from Aktau, an oil and gas hub on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea.

“A plane doing the Baku-Grozny route crashed near the city of Aktau. It belongs to Azerbaijan Airlines,” the Kazakh transport ministry announced on Telegram.

Azerbaijan Airlines, the country’s national carrier, stated that the aircraft “made an emergency landing” before the crash. The cause of the incident remains under investigation.

In response to the tragedy, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev declared Thursday a national day of mourning and canceled his attendance at a planned Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit in Russia.

The Kazakh transport ministry reported that the passengers included 37 Azerbaijani nationals, six Kazakhs, three Kyrgyz, and 16 Russians.

A statement from Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general’s office confirmed that investigators are actively working at the crash site. “We cannot disclose any investigation results at this time. All possible scenarios are being examined, and the necessary expert analyses are underway,” the office said.

A deputy prosecutor general of Azerbaijan is leading the investigative team, which has been dispatched to Kazakhstan to oversee the inquiry into the tragedy.

The crash marks a devastating loss, with efforts continuing to determine its cause and the circumstances leading to the accident.