[Source: Reuters]

Two passengers and one crew member on the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan told Reuters that they heard at least one loud bang as it approached its original destination of Grozny in southern Russia.

Flight J2-8243 crashed on Wednesday in a ball of fire near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from an area of southern Russia where Moscow has repeatedly used air defence systems against Ukrainian attack drones.

At least 38 people were killed while 29 survived.

“After the bang…I thought the plane was going to fall apart,” Subhonkul Rakhimov, one of the passengers, told Reuters from hospital.

He said he had begun to recite prayers and prepare for the end after hearing the bang.

“It was obvious that the plane had been damaged in some way,” he said. “It was as if it was drunk – not the same plane anymore.”
Another passenger on the plane told Reuters that she also heard a loud bang.

“I was very scared,” said Vafa Shabanova, adding that there was also a second bang.

She was then told by a flight attendant to move to the back of the plane.

Both passengers said there appeared to be a problem with the oxygen levels in the cabin after the bang.

Flight attendant Zulfugar Asadov said landing was denied in Grozny due to fog so the pilot circled at which point there were bangs outside the aircraft.

“The pilot had just lifted the plan up when I heard a bang from the left wing. There were three bangs,” he said.
Something rammed into his left arm. The cabin lost pressure.

Beyond the horror of the crash, the first-person narratives from the passengers gives an insight into what may have caused the disaster.

Azerbaijan Airlines suspended a host of flights to Russian cities on Friday and said it considered the crash was caused by what it termed “physical and technical external interference”. It did not detail what that interference was.

Four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan’s investigation into the disaster told Reuters on Thursday that Russian air defences had mistakenly shot it down.

Russia has said it is important to wait for the official investigation to finish its work to understand what happened.