Passengers on the crashed plane said they heard at least one loud bang before it went down

Written by Gleb Stolyarov and Nailia Bagirova

BAKU – Two passengers on the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan told Reuters they heard at least one sound as it approached its destination in Grozny in southern Russia.

Flight J2-8243 crashed on Wednesday in a fireball near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from an area in southern Russia where Moscow has repeatedly used air defense systems to attack Ukrainian aircraft. 38 people died and 29 survived.

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

He said he had started saying prayers in preparation for the end after hearing the sound.

“It was obvious that the plane was damaged in some way,” he said. “It was like late – it's not the same plane anymore.”

Another passenger on the plane told Reuters that he also heard a loud noise.

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

He was then told by a flight attendant to go to the back of the plane.

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

Despite the horror of the accident, first-person accounts from passengers provide insight into what may have caused the tragedy.

Azerbaijan Airlines grounded dozens of flights to Russian cities on Friday and said it believed the crash was caused by what it called “physical and external interference”. It did not explain what the interference was.

Four sources with knowledge of the initial results of Azerbaijan's investigation into the tragedy told Reuters on Thursday that the Russian defense forces fired by mistake.

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

THE DRONE WAR

The Embraer passenger plane was flying from Azerbaijan's capital Baku to Grozny, in the southern region of Chechnya, before flying hundreds of kilometers across the Caspian Sea.

It crashed off the coast of the Caspian Strait after Russian air traffic controllers said it was an emergency possibly caused by a bird strike.

Pictures taken by passengers on the plane before it crashed showed oxygen masks on the ground and people wearing life vests. Footage later showed bloodied and injured passengers exiting the plane.

After the commotion of the crash, there was silence before the groans of the wounded began, Rakhimov said.

The crash underscored the dangers of civil aviation even when flying hundreds of kilometers from a war zone, especially when a major drone war is underway.

The Azerbaijan Airlines plane went down near Grozny, which is more than 850 km (530 miles) from the front lines in Ukraine, but remains a repeated target of Ukrainian drones that have attacked far behind Russian lines.

Russia is using advanced electronic jamming equipment to confuse Ukraine's drone location and communications systems and a large number of air defense systems to shoot down drones.

Since Russia sent thousands of troops to Ukraine in 2022, planes have circled Ukraine and Russia has closed major airports in southwestern Russia.

Russian air traffic controllers said on Friday the plane decided to turn back from its destination in Chechnya amid thick fog and local warnings about Ukrainian drones.

Rosaviatsia said the captain was offered other airports to land at, but chose Aktau in Kazakhstan. It said it would provide full support to the Kazakh and Azerbaijani investigations into the accident.

Asked about reports that Russian air defense forces shot down the plane by mistake, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that he had nothing to add and did not want to conduct an investigation until the official investigation made its conclusions.

(Reporting by Nailia Bagirova and Gleb Stolaryov in Tbilisi; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Angus MacSwan)