As many as 38 people died in a horrific crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane near the Aktau city in Kazakhstan earlier this week. The flight, J2-8243, carrying 62 passengers and five crew members, was supposed to fly from Baku to Grozny in Russia’s Chechnya. Unfortunately, it ended up in flames.
Of the passengers, 37 were Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russians, 6 Kazakh citizens, and 3 Kyrgyz citizens.
Here’s what happened
Take off from Baku
Early on Christmas Day, the Azerbaijani Airlines flight took from the airport of the capital city of Baku.
The plane, an Embraer 190, was due to land in Grozny.
Diversion from destination
The Embraer 190 jet was supposed to fly northwest from Baku to Russia’s Grozny, however it was diverted due to dense fog.
The plane’s course on Flight Radar website showed it to be veering away from its normal route, crossing the Caspian Sea and then circling over the area where it eventually ended up crashing near Aktau.
Flight attendant Zulfugar Asadov, who survived the crash, said that the captain was advised to land the plane at sea, but he decided to set a course for Aktau and land it on the ground, Reuters reported.
Loud ‘bangs’ before crash
Two passengers and Asadov told Reuters that hey heard at least one loud bang as the plane approached the original destination of Grozny.
Subhonkul Rakhimov, one of the passengers, said, “After the bang…I thought the plane was going to fall apart.” Similarly another passenger said that she also heard a loud bang, adding that there was a second thud too.
ALSO READ | Bodycam footage shows distressing aftermath of Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan
It was when the pilot was denied permission to land in Grozny due to dense fog and he circled over the area that the bangs outside the aircraft were heard, crew member Asadov noted.
Crash landing
As the pilot decided to land on ground in Aktau instead of the sea, he warned the crew that it would be a hard landing and asked them to be prepare the passengers, flight attendant Asadov said.
The conversation between the pilot and the air control revealed the way things went down in the last moments before the crash.
Initially, the captain had sought to return to the origin point, Baku, but he later changed the course for Mineralnye Vody airport in southern Russia, a Mirror report said.
ALSO READ | Passenger who survived Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan shares fresh video of aircraft
At the time, when ground control asked him to perform a left orbit, the pilot replied, “I can’t execute, control is lost.”
After vanishing from the radar for 37 minutes, the plane reappeared near Aktau and ended up embroiled in a ball of fire as it crash landed on the opposite shore of the Caspian after what Russia’s aviation watchdog’s preliminary probe said was an emergency possibly caused by a bird strike.
While 38 persons lost their lives in the crash, 29 other survived with serious injuries.
Russian air defense hit plane?
Days after the crash, theories of Russian air defence system being behind the incident surfaced on social media.
Netizens suggested that the suspicious holes seen in the fuselage of the plane seemed like “shrapnel damage”.
Later on Friday, Azerbaijani and US officials also suggested that Russian air defense systems may have brought down the Embraer 190 plane.
The officials came to the suggestion on the basis of expert analysis and survivor accounts.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said that the US “have seen some early indications that would certainly point to the possibility that this jet was brought down by Russian air defense systems”. However, in view of the ongoing investigation into the crash, he refused to elaborate.
Azerbaijan’s minister of digital development and transportation, Rashan Nabiyev, told the media that “preliminary conclusions by experts point at external impact”, as does witness testimony.
“The type of weapon used in the impact will be determined during the probe,” Nabiyev was quoted as saying by The Associated Press.
Diversion due to ‘Ukrainian drone attack’, says Russia
Russian aviation chief, in a statement on Friday, said that “Ukrainian drone attack” was taking place in Chechnya when the Azerbaijani airliner tried to land in the region’s Grozny airport before diverting to Kazakhstan.
Rosaviatsia, Russia’s civil aviation authority, said that the plane’s captain had been offered other airports to land at but chose Kazakhstan’s Aktau.
The agency reportedly also said that it would provide full support to Kazakh and Azerbaijani investigations into the crash.
Azerbaijan Airlines’ statement
The Azerbaijan Airlines, whose Embraer 190 plane crashed on Wednesday, said that preliminary findings from the probe into the crash indicate “physical and technical external interference”.
The findings came amid the increasing speculation about Russian missile striking the flight.
The airline also announced that it suspended all its flights to 10 Russian airports, citing the ongoing investigation into the crash of its flight.
Notably, the investigation into the airliner’s crash by the concerned authorities is yet to be completed.
(with inputs from agencies)