By Gleb Stolyarov and Nailia Bagirova
BAKU (Reuters) – A passenger on the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan told Reuters that there was at least one loud bang as it approached its original destination of Grozny in southern Russia.
Flight J2-8243 crashed on Wednesday in a ball of fire near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from an area of southern Russia where Moscow has repeatedly used air defence systems against Ukrainian drones.
“I thought the plane was going to fall apart,” Subhonkul Rakhimov, one of the passengers, told Reuters from hospital, adding that he had begun to recite prayers and prepare for the end after hearing the bang.
At least 38 people were killed while 29 people survived.
Russia has said it’s important to wait for the official investigation to finish its work to understand what happened.
Four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan’s investigation into the disaster told Reuters on Thursday that Russian air defences had mistakenly shot it down.
Azerbaijan Airlines suspended a host of flights to Russian cities on Friday and said it considered the crash was caused by what it termed “physical and technical external interference”.
After the loud bang, the plane had acted strangely as if it was drunk, Rakhimov said.
“It was as if it was drunk – not the same plane anymore,” he said.
The Embraer passenger jet had flown from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny, in Russia’s southern Chechnya region, before veering off hundreds of miles across the Caspian Sea.
It crashed on the opposite shore of the Caspian after what Russia’s aviation watchdog said was an emergency that may have been caused by a bird strike.
After the turmoil of the crash landing, there was silence before the moaning of the injured began, Rakhimov said.
Asked about reports that Russian air defences had mistakenly shot down the aircraft, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday he had nothing to add and did not want to give any assessments until the official investigation made its conclusions.
Rosaviatsia, Russia’s aviation watchdog, said that the captain of the plane had been offered other airports at which to land, but had chosen Kazakhstan’s Aktau. It said that it would provide comprehensive support to Kazakh and Azerbaijani investigations looking into the crash.
