Full horror of Azerbaijan Airlines plane's final moments in desperate calls to air traffic control
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The horrifying final moments of a doomed Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crash landed in Kazakhstan had been laid bare in desperate calls to air traffic controls. Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer E190AR crashed in flames in Aktau on the western coastline of the Caspian Sea on Christmas Day leaving at least 38 people dead. The flight from Baku, Azerbaijan , was bound for Grozny in the southern Chechen region of Russia. Harrowing calls from the crew to air traffic control shed further light on the flight's final moments. As the pilot struggled to control the plane, air traffic control was notified about their perilous situation.
At 8:12am local time, the crew reported "both GPS lost" and that it sought help with "vectoring" to head back to Baku. Just four minutes later, one of the pilots said: "We have control failure, bird strike in the cockpit. Bird strike in the cockpit (inaudible)… Ground control replied: "AXY8243 I understand you, what kind of help do you need?” At 8:19am, the pilot later said: "I can't maintain 150, we have high pressure in the cabin.”.
Ground control reply: “AXY8243 understood you.” One minute later, at 8:20, the flight’s scheduled arrival time, the pilot says: “Left 360, my plane is losing control.” A leaked transcript at 8:21am said the flight was attempting to head toward Makhachkala, a Russian airport on the Caspian Sea. At 8:22, the crew report: “Now the hydraulics have failed.”.
Just two minutes later, the pilot appeared to deny he had declared a "distress" on board and told ground control: "The board [plane] is in order.” The air traffic controller then could not properly hear the crew. “You are very hard to hear…. tell me your altitude.”.
