Two passengers and a crew member of the Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crashed this Wednesday in Kazakhstan, in which at least 38 people died, say they heard at least one explosion before the plane approached its initial destination of Grozny, in the south of Russia.
HAS ReutersSubhonkul Rakhimov, one of the 29 survivors, says that after the explosion he thought “the plane was going to fall apart”.
“It was obvious that the plane was damaged in some way. It was as if he was drunk. It was no longer the same plane”, stated the passenger.
Flight J2-8243 ended up crashing near the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan, after diverting from an area in southern Russia where Moscow has repeatedly used defense systems against drone attacks from Ukraine.
Another passenger, Vafa Shabanova, tells Reuters that she actually heard a second bang on the plane and that one of the flight attendants advised her to go to the back of the plane.
Zulfugar Asadov, flight attendant, reports that landing in Grozny was denied due to fog and that the The plane’s pilot walked in circles in the area until he heard explosions.
“The pilot had just raised the plane when I heard a bang coming from the left wing. There were three loud sounds”, he tells Reuters, noting that, at that moment, the cabin lost pressure and that problems with oxygen levels were recorded.
Even before reports from survivors of the crash, four sources with knowledge of the investigation had told Reuters that the Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday was shot down by mistake by a Russian air defense system.
Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 flew hundreds of kilometers off its scheduled route from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Grozny, Chechnya, Russia, and crashed on the opposite coast of the Caspian Sea, after which Russia’s aviation regulator said it was an emergency that could have been caused by a bird strike.
Authorities did not immediately explain why the plane crossed the sea, but the accident occurred after Ukrainian drone strikes hit the Chechnya region in southern Russia this month.
Source: rr.sapo.pt
