A survivor of Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243, hit by a Russian missile, recalls an explosion near her leg as the plane struggled to land in Grozny before crash landing in Kazakhstan
A young woman survivor on the plane ‘hit by a Russian missile’ told how she felt an explosion close to her leg.
On Christmas day, Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 crash landed some 280 miles from the reported strike after the captain told ground control he had lost full control of his Embraer 190 with 67 on board.
It is believed a Pantsir-S air defence system was fired as Ukrainian drones were targeting Grozny, capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, where the aircraft was due to land. Reports indicate a blast close to the plane as it sought to land for the third time in Grozny.
There is evidence of shrapnel inside the plane’s cabin. “I don’t know, something exploded near my leg,” the woman passenger, named as Jerova Salihat, told a TV interviewer from her hospital bed. I don’t know what exploded. I don’t know how it happened either.”
She said of the pilot: “He thought he was going to land, but he didn’t land, [and there was an] explosion when he went up”. The initial reason for three aborted landings was fog in Grozny. The woman is the latest of the 29 survivors of the flight from hell to speak about an explosion.
Surviving cabin crew reported hearing “three explosions outside the aircraft” while over Grozny. One of the flight attendants, Zulfugar Asadov, has told how he was hit in the arm by shrapnel, and needed to be bandaged. The plane eventually crash landed after coming out of a nosedive in Aktau, Kazakhstan, after the captain considered but rejected landing in the Caspian Sea.
It broke in two on impact with the front section exploding in a fireball. Some passengers were miraculously able to climb out of the rear section. The captain Aleksander Kalyaninov and co-pilot Igor Kshnyakin are seen as heroes for saving more than two dozen lives after their plane suffered catastrophic damage.
Both men died in the crash. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has demanded an impartial crash probe. He instructed the Prosecutor General’s Office and a government commission to ensure an objective investigation into the plane crash. “The government commission and the Prosecutor General’s Office together with other authorised bodies have been instructed to ensure a comprehensive and objective investigation of the plane crash,” said his spokesman.
There have been demands from Azerbaijan for Russia to apologise for the air defence fire. Chechnya is controlled by warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, a close Putin ally.
