ASTANA, December 28. /TASS/. Investigators from Brazil’s Aeronautical Accidents Investigation and Prevention Center (CENIPA) have arrived in the Kazakh city of Aktau, near where the Embraer 190 plane crashed, the country’s ministry of transport reported.
"On December 28, investigators from Brazil’s Aeronautical Accidents Investigation and Prevention Center arrived in Aktau. The investigation commission held a meeting at its headquarters, where joint tasks at the aircraft incident site were established," the ministry said in a statement.
On Friday, the Kazakh Ministry of Transport reported that representatives of Embraer, the manufacturer of the aircraft, had arrived in Aktau on December 27.
Kazakhstan’s officials earlier stated that analysis of the flight data recorders from the crashed Embraer 190, operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, would begin following the arrival of experts from Brazil.
On December 26, Kazakh Deputy Transport Minister Talgat Lastayev explained during a briefing that Brazilian specialists would decide "how and in what manner to decode these self-recording devices." It had been previously reported that both black boxes had been recovered from the crash site.
The Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190, en route from Baku to Grozny, crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau on December 25. The aircraft carried 67 people, including 62 passengers, primarily citizens of Azerbaijan, as well as nationals of Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, along with five crew members. According to the latest updates, 38 people, including seven Russians, lost their lives, while 29 others survived. A special flight sent by Russia’s Emergencies Ministry evacuated nine Russian nationals, including a child, who were injured in the crash, from Aktau.