As more details over Azerbaijan Airlines crash emerge, pilots and crew are hailed as heroes

As harrowing details emerge of the last moments of Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8432, which crashed on Wednesday in Aktau, the flight crew who did their best to save the passengers until the last moment are being hailed as heroes.

Azerbaijan Airlines published the names of the five crew members, identifying Igor Kshnyakin and Aleksandr Kalyaninov as pilots and Hokuma Aliyeva, Zulfugar Asadov and Aydan Rahimli as flight attendants.

According to the airline, the Embraer 190 aircraft carried 37 Azerbaijani citizens, six from Kazakhstan, three from Kyrgyzstan, and 16 Russian nationals.

A total of 29 passengers survived the crash, including three children, while 38 perished as the pilots attempted to make an emergency landing near the Kazakh city of Aktau after flying the damaged aircraft over 300 miles across the Caspian Sea.

Azerbaijani government sources have exclusively confirmed to Euronews on Thursday that a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the crash.

According to the sources, the missile was fired at Flight 8432 during drone air activity above Grozny, and the shrapnel hit the passengers and cabin crew as it exploded next to the aircraft mid-flight.

Government sources have told Euronews that the damaged aircraft was not allowed to land at any Russian airports despite the pilots’ requests for an emergency landing, and it was ordered to fly across the Caspian Sea towards Aktau in Kazakhstan.

According to data, the plane’s GPS navigation systems were jammed throughout the flight path above the sea.

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Captain Kshnyakin, First Officer Kalyaninov and chief flight attendant Aliyeva lost their lives in the crash landing. Hailing them as heroes, the Azerbaijani government decided on Friday that the three victims would be buried with state honours. The other two flight attendants, Asadov and Rahimli, reportedly survived and were being treated in hospital on Friday.

Azerbaijan Airlines President Samir Rzayev paid tribute to the crew’s heroism. "Their bravery and dedication to their duties, even in the final moments, will never be forgotten. The priority they gave to saving lives has made them heroes, and their names will be remembered in history," Rzayev said.

The family of Aliyeva, the flight's purser who died in the crash, paid tribute to her, saying, “she always told us to be proud of her”.

Aliyeva’s voice can be heard in a chilling video filmed by a passenger mid-flight in which she is heard trying to comfort the cabin.

Subkhonkul Rahimov, a passenger from Yekaterinburg who survived the crash on Wednesday, also praised Aliyeva and her courage.

"The flight attendant who was closer to the pilots endured a horrifying situation ... She showed determination and carried out all her functions and duties perfectly in such a situation," Rahimov said, according to domestic outlets.

"I remember when she told people to 'stay calm' – there was a man who was getting agitated – of course, it was important to stay calm. She spoke mainly in Azerbaijani and was calming people down," he added.

Aliyeva’s family told APA news agency that she had been working for Azerbaijan Airlines since 2016, was a “cheerful person” and studied law before deciding to become a flight attendant.

“She had visited many countries and always told us to be proud of her. Once, after returning from a trip, she said their plane almost crashed... This time, the crash happened, and my daughter couldn’t survive, ” Aliyeva’s family said.

And in another tragic development, the youngest victim of the plane crash was identified on Friday as 13-year-old Mukhammadali Farid Oglu Eganov. He was flying alone to join his mother in Grozny for the holidays, AnewZ reported.

Remarkable airmanship

Captain Kshnyakin had a flight experience of over 15,000 hours of which 11,200 hours as captain, according to Azerbaijan Airlines.

He and First Officer Kalyaninov displayed remarkable airmanship, according to experts, as they managed to fly the stricken plane across the Caspian Sea and crash landing just 3 kilometres short of the Aktau airport runway.

Based on the footage of the crash site and the wreckage, aviation experts concluded that the Embraer 190’s left horizontal stabiliser appears to be punctured by shrapnel and that the aircraft lost most of its hydraulic systems, likely including rudder control.

The videos analysed by experts show the pilots were forced to vary the aircraft speed, pitching down to gain speed and climbing to slow down to be able to steer the plane, resulting in what is known as phugoid motion or an oscillation.

The pilots did not seem to have the choice to land the plane softly, and they had to attempt a crash landing without being able to flare.

Both black boxes of the aircraft were recovered on Friday and will now be reviewed by the investigators. Regional prosecutor Abylaibek Ordabayev said that “the audio of the radio communication between the dispatcher and crew has been collected, while the inspection of the crash site, covering over 4,000 square kilometers, is almost complete, with police increasing security in the area.”

However, Russian investigative Telegram channel VChK-OGPU published what it said was the transcript of the communications between the cockpit and Grozny air traffic controllers.

According to the excerpts, Captain Kshnyakin is allegedly heard saying several times that he was losing control of the plane, that the hydraulic and GPS systems were not functioning, and that the cabin pressure was dropping as he tried to divert the stricken aircraft to other airports in the area.

The excerpts only feature the immediate communication on approach to Grozny around the time of the explosion next to the aircraft. The captain thought the blast was a bird strike, according to leaked transcripts.

Azerbaijan Airlines told Azerbaijani Trend news agency that the last full technical inspection of the aircraft was conducted last October.

According to the airline, the Embraer 190 aircraft, registered as 4K-AZ65 and manufactured in 2013, had completed a total of 9,949 landings and accumulated some 15,257 flight hours before the crash.