A woman who survived the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash that killed 38 people has said she felt an explosion close to her leg.
The plane had been carrying 67 people on Christmas Day when it crash landed in Kazakhstan, and it is strongly believed it was down to a Russian missile strike from the country’s air defence systems.
Warning: Video contains upsetting conte
Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev declared that he could say ‘with complete clarity that the plane was shot down by Russia’, and accused Russia of trying to ‘hush up’ the matter for several days.
He said that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had apologised to him, but demanded that Russia ‘must admit its guilt’ and ‘punish the guilty, bring them to criminal responsibility and pay compensation to the Azerbaijani state, the injured passengers and crew members’.
One of the survivors of the plane crash was passenger Jerova Salihat, who spoke from her hospital bed to say she felt an explosion close to her leg.
“Something exploded near my leg,” she said of the thing that caused the plane to crash. “I don’t know what exploded. I don’t know how it happened either.
“[The pilot] thought he was going to land, but he didn’t land, [and there was an] explosion when he went up.”
Jerova Salihat was one of the passengers on board the Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crashed (East2West)
Salihat has joined the ranks of the survivors of the crash who have spoken about the plane being hit with explosions, with flight attendant Zulfugar Asadov saying he was hit in the arm by shrapnel and members of the cabin crew saying there were ‘three explosions outside the aircraft’ while they were over Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.
The plane crash landed in Kazakhstan after the captain decided not to attempt a landing in the Caspian Sea, with the plane breaking into two parts and the front exploding in a fireball.
US military sources back up the idea that the passenger plane was shot down by Russian weapons after it set off from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku and had been heading for Grozny.
Subhonkul Rakhimov, a passenger on board the flight, said he thought he was going to die in the crash and felt his body twisting before something it it and everything went silent.
He could then hear people moaning, which is when he realised that he had survived and he ‘didn’t know what to do’.
38 of the 67 people on board the plane died when it crashed on Christmas Day (ISSA TAZHENBAYEV/AFP via Getty Images)
Flight attendant Hokuma Aliyeva had tried to reassure passengers in the final moments before the plane crashed that ‘everything will be fine’, but she and many others sadly died in the crash.
Asadov, her colleague, said they asked passengers to stay calm and remain in their seats, adding that what saved the lives of some on board the plane was it breaking up when it landed.
He said: “If the plane had touched down with both the front and rear landing gears at the same time, no one would have survived.
“When the front landing gear touched the ground, the plane broke into two pieces, and the front cockpit was torn off.”
Featured Image Credit: ISSA TAZHENBAYEV/AFP via Getty Images / East2West
Topics: World News, Russi
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A survivor from the devastating Azerbaijan Airlines crash has spoken of the moment he realised he was alive.
The Azerbaijan Airlines crash, which left 38 dead in Kazakhstan, went down on Christmas Day earlier this week. With 67 people on board, Flight 8243’s crash is currently a mystery as investigations are underway.
The plane, which was traveling to Grozny, Russia from Baku, was filmed as it touched down during an emergency landing and went up in flames as soon as it hit the ground.
Miraculously, 29 people survived – including Zulfugar Asadov, a flight attendant, and Subhonkul Rakhimov, a passenger.
An Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed on Christmas Day, taking 38 lives (Meiramgul Kussainova/Anadolu via Getty Images)
From his hospital bed in Baku, Asadov spoke to the New York Times in a phone interview, saying: “Thank God I’m alive.”
Having been in such a deadly crash, it’s understandable that it could take a while to come around to the idea that you survived. Telling Reuters in another interview the moment he realised he had made it, passenger Rakhimov said: “I thought that was my last prayer.”
“After the bang… I thought the plane was going to fall apart,” he added.
Seated in the back of the aircraft, he said his body was hit by something, and that he was twisting before it all went silent. The only thing that he could hear were people moaning – which is when he ‘realized that we have landed’.
He said. “I didn’t know what to do — whether to laugh or cry.”
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29 people miraculously survived the deadly crash (Emergency Situations of Kazakhstan/Anadolu via Getty Images )
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According to Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev, 11 people were in critical condition after being pulled from the wreckage.
He said, as per CNN: “The bodies are in poor condition, mostly burnt, all collected. Now they will be in the morgue, and identification will take place.”
While only one survivor’s identity remains unknown, Bozumbayev revealed: “She is unconscious, has no documents, and is in the hospital.”
One woman joined the rescue and told Radio Free Europe’s Kazakh Service that the scene before her made her cry.
She said: “The front (part of the plane) was on fire. We rescued the survivors. Their bodies were covered in blood. They were crying. Everyone was asking for help.”
The woman, known as Elmira, said there were children and teenagers among the survivors.
An investigation is being launched into what caused the plane to go down (Emergency Situations of Kazakhstan/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“A little girl came out. She looked at me and said, ‘Save my mom, my mom is still there’. She was crying and begging, ‘Please save her, save her’,” she said.
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russian officials have gone on to launch an investigation into the crash.
Azerbaijan Airlines has suggested that the plane had suffered ‘physical and technical external interference,’ as per translation from the New York Times.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said a Russian Emergencies Ministry plane with medical personnel and equipment was flying to Kazakhstan to assist in the rescue at a summit for the Commonwealth of Independent States.
He said: “Let’s hope for a speedy recovery of the injured ones and, of course, I am sure, a thorough investigation will be carried out. We will coordinate the work of our special and aviation services on all issues related to this tragedy.”
Featured Image Credit: Emergency Situations of Kazakhstan/Anadolu via Getty Images / Meiramgul Kussainova/Anadolu via Getty Images
Topics: News, Russia, Travel, World News
Five people have died after a passenger plane collided with a Japanese coast guard aircraft and burst into flames on the runway of Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.
All 367 passengers and 12 crew members were evacuated off the passenger plane before it was entirely taken over by a blaze which appeared to start on the aircraft’s wing
The Japanese coast guard said the pilot of its plane had escaped, and local news has reported that the five other crew members on board have been found dead.
A local TV video showed a large eruption of fire and smoke from the side of the Japan Airlines plane as it taxied on a runway.
The area around the wing then caught fire. Footage an hour later showed the plane fully on fire.
NHK TV said the plane was an Airbus A-350 that had flown from New Chitose airport, near the city of Sapporo, to Haneda.
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STR/JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty Images
Coast Guard spokesperson Yoshinori Yanagishima confirmed the collision between the passenger plane and its flight MA-722, a Bombardier Dash-8.
Swede Anton Deibe, 17, who was a passenger on the Japan Airlines plane, told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet: “The entire cabin was filled with smoke within a few minutes. We threw ourselves down on the floor.
“Then the emergency doors were opened and we threw ourselves at them. The smoke in the cabin stung like hell. It was a hell.”
“We have no idea where we are going so we just run out into the field. It was chaos,” added Anton, who was travelling with his parents and sister.
Kyodo News said the coast guard plane, which is based at Haneda, had been due to head to Niigata to deliver relief goods to residents affected by a deadly earthquake in the region on Monday (1 January) that killed at least 48 people.
STR/JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty Images
Haneda is one of the busiest airports in Japan, and many people travel over the New Year holidays.
Footage from inside the passenger plane showed that those on board had to navigate smoke to escape the flames.
An investigation will be launched to determine what caused the collision between the aircrafts.
Kyodo News had previously reported that the five other people on board the coast guard plane had been found according to the Tokyo fire department, but information on their condition had not yet been released.
Now sadly five deaths have been confirmed, while the plane’s pilot survived but was severely injured.
Japan’s prime minister Fumio Kishida confirmed the deaths of five people due to provide earthquake relief.
Featured Image Credit: X / @alto_maple X / @Mohammadzain_
Topics: World News
The death toll from a passenger plane that crashed in South Korea has risen to 179, meaning that all of the passengers and four of the plane’s six crew members are now confirmed to be dead.
Two crew members were recovered alive from the site of the horrific crash and taken to hospital, meaning that the immediate fate of all 181 people on board the flight is now known.
The flight was a Jeju Air passenger plane, a Boeing 737-800 jet, which had departed from Bangkok, Thailand, and crashed following an emergency landing at an airport in the South Korean town of Muan.
All passengers and four crew members on board the plane are confirmed to have died (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
Footage of the crash appeared to show the plane skidding across the runway without having deployed its landing gear before it collided with a concrete wall and exploded.
Much of the plane was destroyed by the crash, with only the aircraft’s tail section recognisable from the debris.
According to the BBC, local news outlets have reported that one of the passengers sent a text message to a family member saying a bird was ‘stuck in the wing’ of the plane.
“Should I leave my last words,” was the final message they were able to send before the plane crashed, and with all passengers confirmed to be dead, that would have been the last message the person was able to send out.
The plane made an emergency landing at an airport in the South Korean town of Muan, but the landing gear failed to deploy (Twitter)
An investigation into the crash confirmed that the plane had been attempting to land before it was given a bird strike warning from air traffic control.
Around two minutes later, the plane issued a mayday warning and the flight was given permission to land at the airport, with the aircraft then coming into contact with the ground without the landing gear deployed before it skidded into the wall.
The plane’s black box has been recovered from the site of the crash so investigators will be able to learn what happened to the plane in the final moments.
South Korea’s government has declared a seven day period of mourning, and family members of the passengers on board the plane who had gathered at Muan International Airport will know the tragic news that their loved ones did not survive.
A passenger on board the plane sent a message to a family member saying a bird was ‘stuck in the wing’ before the crash. (BBC)
The runway will remain closed until New Year’s Day.
The two crew members who were taken from the plane still alive suffered ‘mid to severe’ injuries, while authorities said that the youngest passenger on board the plane was three-years-old, and the eldest being 78.
Five of the passengers on board the flight were children under the age of 10.
While a bird strike or weather conditions are being considered as causes of the crash, the exact cause has not yet been confirmed.
