The pilots were able to cope with the extremely adverse conditions and were able to get the badly damaged plane, which according to the Azerbaijani government was destroyed by a Russian missile fired from the Pancir S anti-aircraft system, to the ground in such a way that at least half of the people survived.
The plane lost its hydraulics in flight after the explosion, due to which the pilots could only use the engines for control. They controlled both height and speed. After the intervention, they wanted to land at one of the Russian airports, but the Russians forbade them to do so, so they had to head to Kazakhstan several hundred kilometers away, where they made an emergency landing not far from the Aktau airport.
“Unfortunately, two of our experienced pilots and one crew member lost their lives in the accident. Their heroism will never be forgotten,” said the head of the airline, Rzajev, according to the Report press agency.
“Although this tragic accident brought a significant loss to our nation, the brave determination of the crew to fulfill their duties until the last moment immortalized their names in history,” he added.
Kšnjakin was an experienced pilot who had already flown more than 15,000 hours, of which 11,200 in the position of captain, the Kazakh airline server Orda quotes.
In addition to the two pilots on board, a crew member, 33-year-old Hokume Alijevová, also died, to whom Rzajev also paid tribute.
The plane crashed on Wednesday morning. Flight J28243 took off from the capital of Azerbaijan Baku at 7:55 local time (4:55 CET) and was headed for the Chechen city of Grozny. However, a Russian missile from the Pancir S air defense system hit him above him during a Ukrainian drone attack, Azerbaijani government sources told Euronews with reference to the investigation.
The Azerbaijani plane was hit by a Russian missile over Grozny. They did not allow him to land in Russia
Foreign
As a result of the impact, the plane had a damaged tail section and disabled hydraulics, writes the British newspaper The Times. Because of this, the pilots could not control the plane and had to rely on the power of the engines.
Discarded hydraulics
According to the newspaper, which cites an unverified voice recording from the cockpit of the pilots who spoke to the control tower in Grozny, an explosion occurred before the hydraulics were disabled, which was also told by the survivor of the accident, Subhonkul Rahimov, to Reuters.
“The hydraulics have failed now,” the pilots announced seven minutes after the impact. The Embraer 190 aircraft is equipped with three independently functioning hydraulic systems that control the wings and tail. Not one of them worked after the intervention.
“After losing control of the plane, the crew tried to control the tilt and pitch of the plane by means of jet engines located on the wings,” The Times newspaper describes the way the pilots had to control the plane.
The pilots subsequently wanted to make an emergency landing at one of the nearby Russian airports. But the Russians did not allow them. “They received an order to fly across the Caspian Sea towards Aktau in Kazakhstan,” the Euronews server quotes government sources.
The plane then turned around and flew to Aktau across the Caspian Sea. On the way, however, the GPS navigation systems of the machines fell out because they were interfered with.
“Because of the Russian electronic warfare system, the communication system of the Azerbaijani plane was completely paralyzed. This disruption caused the plane to disappear from radars in Russian airspace and reappear only in the Caspian Sea region,” the server writes. According to him, apart from Grozny, the pilots could not even land in Makhachkala or Miněralnye Voda.
“It can be assumed that the recommendation (to fly to Aktau) was issued with a single goal: to make the plane crash into the Caspian Sea, where all the witnesses would die and the plane would disappear under the water,” the server speculates.
The plane disappeared from the radar at 8:40 local time. It reappeared at 10:07 a.m. over the Caspian Sea. 21 minutes later, radio communication was interrupted. At 10:30, it hit the ground not far from Aktau.
Investigation version
Currently, according to the media, the main investigative version remains that the plane, on which there were 67 people, including five crew members, was hit by a Russian missile from the air defense system. This is evidenced not only by footage of the crashed plane, which shows small and large holes in the tail of the machine, but also by the Azerbaijani government, which directly stated to Euronews that the Russians were behind the crash.
The Russian Federation stated that it was probably the impact of birds into the machine. Aviation expert Serik Chamitovič, however, doubted this version in an interview for Orda. He reminded, among other things, that the crew reported technical problems only after an hour of flight, that is, when the machine was already flying at a high altitude, where birds usually do not occur.
The testimony of Rachimov about the explosion and the statement of the director of the airline Rzajev that the plane successfully passed a complete technical inspection in October speak against the possibility of a technical defect.
Lots of small holes. The Russians may have accidentally shot down the Azerbaijani plane
Foreign
