Plane crash
A harrowing video taken by a passenger inside the cabin of the plane that crashed in Kazakhstan today has been widely shared on social media, showing the final moments of the plane. 38 people were killed in the accident near Aktau, an oil and gas hub on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea.
In the video, a passenger is clearly seen saying “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) as the plane goes down a steep slope. Yellow oxygen masks were seen hanging from the seats. Screams and cries were heard amid the soft doorbell-like sound of a ‘wear your seatbelt’ light.
The plane took off from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan on the western coast of the Caspian, for the city of Grozny in Chechnya in southern Russia. The country’s flag carrier Azerbaijan Airlines said the plane made an “emergency landing” about 3 km from Aktau.
Another video taken inside the cabin – showing a panel of the plane’s ceiling with reading lights and an air blower turned upside down – showed people screaming for help. The video was apparently taken after the plane crashed.
Blood stains were visible on some of the plane’s armrests.
Azerbaijani authorities said 32 people survived the crash of the Embraer 190, a narrow-body passenger plane.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev declared Thursday a day of national mourning and cancelled a planned trip to Russia for an informal summit of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a group of former Soviet nations.
Kazakhstan’s Emergency Situations Ministry said its workers quickly extinguished a fire that broke out when the plane crashed. The health ministry said it had sent a special flight with specialist doctors from the Kazakh capital, Astana, to treat the injured.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to Aliyev by phone and “also expressed his condolences in connection with the accident”, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a news conference.
President Putin later said, opening a meeting of CIS leaders in St Petersburg, that the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry had been sent to Aktau with medical personnel and other equipment.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on Telegram: “I express my condolences to the relatives of the passengers of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane who died.”
The plane’s path on flight radar showed it deviated from its normal route, crossing the Caspian Sea and then circling over the area, where it eventually crashed.
Kazakhstan said it had launched an investigation into the crash.