Azerbaijan Airlines with 67 passengers and 5 crew members has crashed near Aktau, Kazakhstan.
Azerbaijan Airlines E190 (registration 4K-AZ65) had to do an emergency landing near Aktau airport. The landing resulted with and angled hit to the ground, blown up in fire.
By preliminary report there were 67 passengers and 5 crew members. Has been reported initially 6 survived, then updated to 10 and later increased to 12 people.
The 8 shaped landing attempt is seen and left me unsure why it had to do such go round and leaving me with thoughts of to decrease the ground speed for softer landing to the Aktau airport.
The video footages show the crash onto the ground, while radar data ends at the shore point. The captain probably aimed to land at runway which was quite near.
Was the plane shot down?
Multiples holes at the tail of the Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer ERJ-190 could suggest the aircraft was shut down. They are typical to a surface-to-air missile.
At the time of the incident, Ukraine launched several drone attacks to Russia, air defense was on alert.
There are claims that a Russian air defense system in Chechnya or Dagestan may have mistakenly fired on the plane.
One of the passengers who survived the crash, Kristina, said on social media that the plane had been circling over Aktau for about an hour before it crashed. She said she heard a muffled bang, similar to a collision, during the descent. Another passenger, Zaur Mammadov, said he heard two explosions during the flight.
Official statement by Azerbaijan Airlines: “Until the investigation is concluded, Azerbaijan Airlines has suspended flights en route Baku-Grozny-Baku and Baku-Makhachkala-Baku. All other flights will be operated as scheduled.”
