Azerbaijan Airlines crash: How brave pilots battled to save jet after being 'hit by Russian missile'
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Brave pilots of the doomed Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan battled furiously to save the aircraft before it hit the ground and burst into flames. Flight 8432 was flying from Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, to Grozny, in Chechnya, Russia on Christmas Day when pilots declared an emergency while inside Russian airspace and attempted to land in Aktau, Kazakhstan. The aircraft - an Embraer jet - ultimately crashed in a field, having deviated several hundred miles from its planned route, after what is believed to have been a Russian missile strike.
Officials estimate that 38 people died in the disaster, with only 29 survivors walking from the wreckage on Wednesday. But the total number of deaths could have been much higher without the heroic efforts of the plane's captain and co-pilot, both of whom died when the plane crash-landed.
Captain Igor Kshnyakin was in command of the flight when the plane declared an emergency and he, alongside co-pilot Aleksandr Kalyaninov, steered the flight nearly 200 miles out of Russian airspace. Together, the two carried the plane across the Caspian sea and into Kazakhstan.
While completing the 186-mile trip, they were aided by chief flight attendant Hokuma Aliyeva, who helped calm down panic-stricken passengers after an "explosion" rocked the cabin. She could be heard addressing people over the aircraft's tannoy system assuring them: "Everything will be fine.".
Other attending staffers who survived the flight told of how they tried to calm the several dozen people aboard at the time after they were hit by what they believe was "some kind of external strike". Flight attendant Zulfuqar Asadov said the impact of the explosion "caused panic inside" before it was followed by "another strike".
