Two passengers and a crew member of the plane Azerbaijan Airlines They told Reuters they heard at least one loud bang as it approached its original destination, Groznyin the south of Russia.
Flight J2-8243 crashed on Wednesday amid a fireball near the city of Aktauin Kazakhstan, after deviating from an area in southern Russia where Moscow has repeatedly used air defense systems against attack drones Ukraine. At least 38 people died and 29 survived.
“After the bang… I thought the plane was going to fall,” Subhonkul Rakhimov, one of the passengers, told Reuters from the hospital. He explained that he had started reciting prayers and preparing for the end after hearing the loud noise. “It was obvious that the plane had suffered some type of damage,” he said. “It was like I was drunk: it wasn’t the same plane anymore.”
Another passenger on the plane told Reuters that she had also heard a loud explosion. “I was very scared,” Vafa Shabanova said, adding that a second boom was also heard.
A flight attendant then told him to go to the back of the plane. Both passengers said there appeared to be a problem with oxygen levels in the cabin after the blast.
Flight attendant Zulfugar Asadov claimed that the landing in Grozny was denied due to fog, so the pilot flew in circles, at which point knocks were heard outside the plane. “The pilot had just lifted the plane when I heard a bang on the left wing. There were three bangs,” he said. Something collided with his left arm. The cabin lost pressure.
Beyond the horror of the accident, the passengers’ first-person accounts give insight into what could have caused the disaster.
Ongoing investigation
Azerbaijan Airlines on Friday suspended a series of flights to Russian cities and said it considered the crash to have been caused by what it called “external physical and technical interference.” He did not detail what interference was involved.
Four sources familiar with the preliminary conclusions of the Azerbaijani investigation into the disaster told Reuters on Thursday that Russian air defenses had shot it down by mistake. He Kremlin has said that it is important to wait for the investigation officer finishes his work to understand what happened.
Forced landing
The Embraer passenger plane had flown from Baku, capital of Azerbaijanto Grozny, in the Russian region of Chechnya (south), before detouring hundreds of kilometers along the Caspian Sea. “The captain said that he had been advised to land the plane at sea, but he decided to head to Aktau and land on land,” Asadov explained. “He warned that there would be a hard landing and asked us to be ready and prepare the passengers.”
The plane crashed on the opposite bank of the Caspian after what, according to the Russian aviation control body, was an emergency that could have been due to the impact of a bird.
Footage recorded by passengers on the plane before it crashed showed oxygen masks on and people wearing life jackets. Later images showed bloodied and bruised passengers exiting the plane.
After the turmoil of the crash landing, there was silence before the moans of the wounded began, Rakhimov said.
Fly over war zones
The accident has highlighted the risks faced by civil aviation even when planes fly hundreds of kilometers from a zone of guerraespecially when a war is being fought drones of great magnitude.
Previous disasters include the downing of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 in 2020 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, killing all 176 people on board.
In 2014, flight MH17 Malaysian Airlines was shot down over eastern Ukraine by a Russian BUK missile system with the loss of 298 passengers and crew.
In 1983, the Soviet Union shot down Korean Air Lines flight 007 after deviating from its route and passing through prohibited airspace. In 1988, during the Iran-Iraq War, the US warship Vincennes shot down an Iran Air flight over the Gulf, killing all 290 people on board.
