A passenger aboard the Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crashed near Kazakhstan’s Aktau on Wednesday captured chilling footage of the chaotic moments before and after the mishap, shedding light on the harrowing scenes inside the aircraft.
The Embraer 190 jet, en route from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Grozny, Russia, crashed near Aktau after reportedly being diverted due to dense fog.
The plane was carrying 62 passengers and five crew members. An emergency landing was made, with authorities rescuing 32 survivors.
The aircraft, which was intended to travel northwest from Baku to Grozny, deviated from its usual route. Flight tracking data from the website Flight Radar showed the plane crossing the Caspian Sea, flying off course, and circling over the area near Aktau where it ultimately crashed.
Footage shared by Russian media outlet RT depicted the aftermath, showing a passenger bleeding from the head and another attempting to exit the wreckage.
A surviving passenger from the Aktau plane crash manages to capture footage of inside the cabin pic.twitter.com/shIblEmV1d
— RT (@RT_com) December 25, 2024
Another video circulating on social media shows a man praying moments before the crash, with sounds of panic and the roaring plane engine echoing in the background.
A passenger captured the final moments of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane before its crash in Kazakhstan. pic.twitter.com/OOJ5Wpagbq
— Globe Eye News (@GlobeEyeNews) December 25, 2024
This video, which is over a minute long, has not been independently verified by The Daily Guardian.
The death toll reached 38, with 29 survivors hospitalized. However, officials from Kazakhstan, Russia, and Azerbaijan warned that these numbers could change.
Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash cause
The Kazakh transport ministry confirmed that the plane was carrying 37 nationals from Azerbaijan, six from Kazakhstan, three from Kyrgyzstan, and 16 from Russia.
Azerbaijan Airlines initially stated that the incident was caused by a bird strike, but later retracted the statement. “We cannot disclose any investigation results at this time,” the office of Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general said in a statement.
“All possible scenarios are being examined, and the necessary expert analyses are underway,” the statement added.
Images and videos from the crash show the plane descending rapidly before erupting into flames as it struck the shoreline, followed by a thick plume of black smoke. Bloodied and injured passengers were seen stumbling away from a part of the plane’s fuselage that remained intact.
“I’ll never forget their look, full of pain and despair,” news agency AFP quoted a Kazakh woman as saying, who was near the crash site and rushed to help survivors. “A girl pleaded: ‘Save my mother, my mother is back there,’” the woman recalled.
