The final words from an Azerbaijan Airlines flight attendant involved in the tragic Christmas Day plane crash have been revealed.
Hokuma Aliyeva, 33, was one of the 38 who died on board Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 which crashed near the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan on Christmas Day.
The aircraft travelling from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny in Chechnya, Russia was rerouted due to fog. But it crashed during an emergency landing in the western city of Aktau.
Azerbaijan Airlines crash
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29 people managed to survive the crash and Russian President Vladimir Putin has since apologised to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev ‘for the fact that the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace’.
Russian defence systems were firing near Grozny on Wednesday due to a Ukrainian drone strike, but the Kremlin did not mention if one its missiles hit the plane.
It is currently unknown what caused the plane to crash, and an investigation has been launched.
Now, footage filmed by a passenger on board has been shared online, and it shows flight attendant Aliyeva trying her best to comfort those during their final moments.
In the clip, her final words were heard, according to a translation by local media.
Flight attendant Hokuma Aliyeva, 33, tried her best to comfort passengers in their final moments (East2West)
She started off by saying: “Fasten your seat belts. Dear passengers, please follow the instructions.
“Act accordingly, everything will be fine. Sit down and fasten your seat belt. Do not stand in the aisle, it is dangerous.”
Her final words were then: “Everything will be fine.”
Survivor and air steward Zulfugar Asadov has explained what he witnessed on the flight, saying: “We departed for Grozny at 8:00am. As we approached for landing, we saw that the airport was covered in very thick fog.
“The captain began descending but had to abort the landing and circle around due to poor visibility, hoping the fog would clear. However, the second and third landing attempts also failed.”
After the pilot decided to head to the closest airport, Asadov added: “But at that moment, we heard a strange noise coming from outside the plane. I immediately went into the cabin with my female colleague Aydan Ragimli. We saw panic spreading among the passengers.
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38 on board Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 died from the crash (ISSA TAZHENBAYEV/AFP via Getty Images)
“We reassured the passengers, telling them there was no need to worry, that everything was fine, and asked them to stay in their seats and fasten their seatbelts. At that moment, I was cut on the arm by an impact that occurred outside the plane.”
He continued: “If the plane had touched down with both the front and rear landing gears at the same time, no one would have survived. When the front landing gear touched the ground, the plane broke into two pieces, and the front cockpit was torn off.
“I remained conscious despite bleeding heavily, but it was very difficult to breathe. Aydan Ragimli and I were lying near the door, and I tried to open it.
“Once the air entered the cabin, breathing became easier. We began helping passengers and evacuating with them. A rescue team was waiting outside. I called them because my hand injury was severe, and I had no strength left.
“I asked them to help evacuate the surviving passengers. I am grateful for their assistance.”Featured Image Credit: East2West / ISSA TAZHENBAYEV/AFP via Getty Images
Topics: Christmas, Russia, Vladimir Putin, World News
Anish Vij
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Published 15:42 28 Dec 2024 GMT
Horrifying footage shows Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash that tragically killed 38 passengers
The plane crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day
Chilling footage showing the moment the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed on Christmas Day has been shared online.
It’s understood that 38 people have died after Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 crashed near the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan on Christmas Day.
The flight had originally departed from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku and was headed for Grozny in Chechnya, Russia but was ultimately rerouted due to fog. Footage later saw the plane attempting an emergency landing in the western city of Aktau, but ultimately burst into flames just moments are touching down on the runway.
Warning: Video contains upsetting content
Azerbaijan Airlines crash
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29 people survived the crash, with Sky News reporting that 37 of the passengers onboard were Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian, six Kazakhstani and three Kyrgyzstani.
According to Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev, 11 people were in critical condition after being pulled from the wreckage, while one survivor remained unidentified as of 26 December.
“The bodies are in poor condition, mostly burnt, all collected,” he added, via CNN. “Now they will be in the morgue, and identification will take place.”
An investigation into the cause of the crash is currently ongoing, with the carrier stating that ‘external physical and technical interference’ was the reason.
An investigation is currently underway into what caused the plane to crash (Meiramgul Kussainova/Anadolu via Getty Images)
While an official cause is yet to be determined, a report published by Reuters suggests that Russian air defence systems may be at fault for downing the plane.
This theory is also said to be backed up by US military sources.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has also instructed his government to set up a commission to look into the crash.
“The commission’s task is to fully investigate the matter, examine the causes of the crash and all its details, and provide information both to me and to the Azerbaijani public,” he said in an official briefing on Wednesday, adding that a criminal case has been ‘launched’.
38 people died in the devastating accident (Emergency Situations of Kazakhstan/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Russian president Vladimir Putin has since spoken to the Azerbaijani leader, apologising for the ‘tragic incident’ without saying that Russia was responsible.
“(President) Vladimir Putin apologised for the tragic incident that occurred in Russian airspace and once again expressed his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to the injured,” an official statement from the Kremlin released today (28 December) read, via BBC.
Azerbaijan Airlines has since suspended flights to five Russian airports, citing concerns about ‘potential risks to flight safety’ per a report from The Guardian.Featured Image Credit: EuroNews / ISSA TAZHENBAYEV/AFP via Getty Images
Topics: World News, Russia, Travel
Brenna Cooper
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Updated 19:40 19 Dec 2024 GMTPublished 19:36 19 Dec 2024 GMT
Chilling final words of pilot who let his children fly plane before it crashed and killed everyone onboard
The chilling incident took place on a flight heading from Russia to Hong Kong
Here are the haunting final words of a pilot who made the fatal decision to allow his children to sit in the cockpit and pretend to fly the plane.
On 23 March, 1994 one of the most tragic, and arguably avoidable, crashes happened which caused the deaths of all 75 people onboard.
Aeroflot Flight 593 was heading from Moscow to Hong Kong on a late night flight. Onboard was captain Andrew Viktorovich Danilov, an experienced pilot who’d clocked around 9,500 hours of flight experience alongside first officer Igor Vasilyevich Piskaryov and relief captain Yaroslav Vladimirovich Kudrinsky.
While the three pilots were more than experienced to handle the controls of a commercial jet, none of the men could account for human error caused by children sitting at the plane’s controls.
The tragedy occurred on an Aeroflot flight (JoanValls/Urbanandsport /NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The flight was first international trip for Kudrinsky’s kids Yana, 13, and Eldar, 15, with the pilot wanting to mark the children’s first trip by allowing them into the cockpit to see where their father worked.
Despite being against regulations, the crew onboard believed it would be safe as the plane was on autopilot, which meant the children wouldn’t actually be in control of aircraft.
First into her father’s seat was Yana, who sat down in-front of the controls as around 00:43am and pretended to ‘fly’ the plane while it was on autopilot.
Kudrinsky’s son was next into the chair and was allowed to move the controls and pretend to fly the plane at around 00:51am.
Disaster would strike just under four minutes later.
At 00:54am, the teenager manipulated the control stick for over 30 seconds with inputs up to 10 kilograms, which contradicted the input made by the autopilot to keep the aircraft stable and straight, which then changed the flight control settings to manual.
Aeroflot Flight 593 black box tape
Credit: TikTok/@onlythemostviral
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A slight indicator light flashed up to inform the crew that Eldar was now in partial control of the plane, however the crew weren’t used to non-soviet aircraft and failed to notice the warning.
The aircraft then entered a bank, with the autopilot unable to maintain altitude due to the angle of the wings.
Captain Kudrinsky then ordered the co-pilot to take control as he got his son away from his seat so he could take command of the aircraft.
“Eldar, get away. Go to the back, go to the back Eldar! You see the danger don’t you,” Kudrinsky could be heard saying on cockpit voice recording.
“Go away, go away Eldar! Go away, go away. I tell you to go away!”
The pilots then attempted to regain control of the aircraft and were nearly successful in doing so, however they accidentally over corrected and sent the plane into an almost vertical climb, stalling and sending it into a spin.
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The pilots attempted to regain control, but were ultimately unable to do so (YouTube/MorfoAtari)
It began to lose altitude, and eventually descended beneath the minimum safe altitude for the flight at the section of its route over mountainous terrain.
At 00:59, air traffic control in nearby Novokuznetsk were waiting for a position update through radio transmission from the flight, but it never came, as the flight stopped appearing on their radar screens.
It turns out that at 00:58, just two minutes and six seconds after the events unfolded, Flight 593 crashed in a flat altitude at high vertical speed, estimated to be around 160mph, in the Kuznetsk Alatau Mountain range in the Kemerovo Oblast region of southern Russia.
The aircraft was destroyed, killing everyone onboard.
Aeroflot initially attempted to deny the pilots were at fault, however the above transcript would ultimately be published, confirming the crash was human error.Featured Image Credit: YouTube/MorfoAtari
Topics: World News, History
Brenna Cooper
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Updated 15:12 27 Dec 2024 GMTPublished 15:11 27 Dec 2024 GMT
Man who survived tragic Boxing Day tsunami shares haunting two words he heard moments before
Luke Simon was caught up in one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern history
A man who survived the devastating Boxing Day tsunami has revealed the haunting words he heard moments before disaster struck.
The Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami remains one of the most devastating natural disasters in modern history, with over 227,000 people losing their lives on 26 December 2004.
Two decades on from the disaster and several survivors are marking the anniversary by sharing their harrowing recollections from the day.
First waves of 2004 Boxing Day tsunami
Credit: YouTube/JulianHadden1
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One of those survivors was Luke Simon, now 50, who was at a cafe on Thailand’s Koh Phi Phi islands with his brother Piers, girlfriend Sophie Moghadam as well as friends Ben Seyfried and Nick Thorne on the morning of 26 December.
Luke had been working in Thailand as a PE teacher and had been visited by his brother for Christmas.
However they would instead find themselves caught up in an unthinkable tragedy.
Recalling the events in an interview with The Mirror alongside his appearance in ITV documentary Tsunami: The Wave That Shook The World, Luke revealed the chilling lengths he went to in order to survive the 100ft wave.
“The horizon was sort of bubbling up and down because the wave had already hit the shore and then had destroyed anything in its path, and then was coming straight at us,” he explained.
A photograph of the wave taken in Hat Rai Lay Beach, Krabi, Thailand (AFP via Getty Images)
Unsure of the impending danger and observing people frantically running inland, Luke initially believed there could’ve been a gunman or a rabid dog on the loose. However he would soon realise the gravity of the situation they were in after hearing two chilling words. “Water, coming.”
What came next was a desperate dash for survival as Luke, Piers, Sophie, Ben and Nick attempted to get themselves to higher ground.
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WOMAN WHO LOST FIANCÉ AND TWO CHILDREN IN BOXING DAY TSUNAMI MAKES DEVASTATING DISCOVERY 20 YEARS ON
Luke was able to hoist himself onto a nearby roof and set about helping Sophie up. Ben and Nick had been swept into a nearby alleyway by the water, while Piers suddenly vanished from his sight.
After watching the wave destroy everything in its path, the group began to search for missing Piers.
“We were all together again but Piers isn’t, there is something not right here. I tried to stop myself putting together these sentences, but I couldn’t,” Luke said, adding that he had mentally begun to explore multiple scenarios of what could’ve happened to his brother.
Luke searching for his brother Piers in the aftermath of the disaster (ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Five days and later and Luke would finally discover that his brother had been killed in the destruction after travelling through makeshift morgues where deceased bodies were being held.
In the two decades since the disaster Luke has focused on charity work, setting up School in a Bag – a charity which supplies school essentials to those in need worldwide – and commemorating his brother’s passing every Boxing Day.Featured Image Credit: ITV/ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP via Getty Images
Topics: World News, ITV, TV
Brenna Cooper
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Published 15:25 19 Dec 2024 GMT
75 passengers lost their lives in tragic crash after pilot let his children into cockpit to control plane
63 passengers and 12 flight crew aboard Aeroflot Flight 593 lost their lives in 1994
One of the most tragic incidents in aviation history took place just over 30 years ago.
Aeroflot Flight 593 – carrying 63 passengers and 12 flight crew – was being flown by experienced airline captain Andrew Viktorovich Danilov of Russia back in 1994.
The 23 March flight successfully departured from Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, Russia to Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong shortly after midnight.
Danilov, who had 9,500 hours worth of in-flight experience, was joined by first officer Igor Vasilyevich Piskaryov (5,885 hours) and relief captain Yaroslav Vladimirovich Kudrinsky (8,940 hours).
Aeroflot Flight 593 black box tape
Credit: TikTok/@onlythemostviral
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Travelling on board were the captain’s two children on their first international trip with their father.
As the aircraft cruised towards its final destination on autopilot, the majority of its 63 passengers were asleep.
At 00:43, Kudrinsky’s daughter, 13, sat in her father’s seat, manually adjusting the autopilot’s heading setting so it made her feel like she was ‘flying’ the plane.
At 00:51, Kudrinsky let his son, 15 – for reasons unknown – essentially take control of the plane, possibly believing that because autopilot was controlling the aircraft, and that the 15-year-old’s actions would have no effect.
At 00:54, the teenager manipulated the control stick for over 30 seconds with inputs up to 10 kilograms, which contradicted the input made by the autopilot to keep the aircraft stable and straight, and changed the flight control settings to manual.
The plane was en-route to Hong Kong (YouTube/MorfoAtari)
Nobody onboard realised that he was in control of the aircraft but when autopilot tried to regain control, it conflicted with the boy’s controls, which had increased to inputs of 12 and 13 kg.
Eventually, this led to the disconnection of the autopilot servo from the aileron control linkage.
The pilots missed a non-audible warning light, as they had mostly flown Russian-built aircraft and were unfamiliar with the Airbus setup.
The aircraft then entered a bank, with the autopilot unable to maintain altitude due to the angle of the wings.
Captain Kudrinsky then ordered the co-pilot to take control as he got his son away from his seat so he could take command of the aircraft.
After re-adjusting his seat due to auto-pilot settings, the bank angle had increased to 90 degrees, with the A310 unable to turn from such a steep angle.
The plane lost control and eventually crashed, killing everyone onboard (YouTube/MorfoAtari)
With the pilots left to fend for themselves, they managed to recover the aircraft’s dive, though over corrected and sent the plane into an almost vertical climb, stalling and sending it into a spin.
It began to lose altitude, and eventually descended beneath the minimum safe altitude for the flight at the section of its route over mountainous terrain.
At 00:59, air traffic control in nearby Novokuznetsk were waiting for a position update through radio transmission from the flight, but it never came, as the flight stopped appearing on their radar screens.
It turns out that at 00:58, just two minutes and six seconds after the events unfolded, Flight 593 crashed in a flat altitude at high vertical speed, estimated to be around 160mph, in the Kuznetsk Alatau Mountain range in the Kemerovo Oblast region of southern Russia.
The aircraft was destroyed, killing everyone onboard.
Despite Aeroflot initially denying that the pilots were at fault, it was forced to change its account of events when a leaked copy of the cockpit voice recorder transcript was published.
Additional words by Joshua Nair