Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev says that a criminal case was launched to probe into the Azerbaijan Airline passenger plane that crashed early on Wednesday in Kazakhstan killing at least 38 people.

"According to the information provided to me, the AZAL airline plane, flying on the Baku-Grozny route, changed its course due to worsening weather conditions and began heading toward Aktau airport, where the crash occurred during landing.

General, has sent a letter of condolences to President Ilham Aliyev over the plane crash near Aktau, Kazakhstan.