A transcript of the conversations of the crew of the Embraer 190 aircraft of Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL), which crashed on December 25, has shed light on the circumstances of the tragedy. The document, published by the Telegram channel "Baza", shows that the crew made key decisions on the flight route and the refusal to land at a number of Russian airports independently.
The plane, flying from Baku to Grozny, encountered a critical situation in the air, but the pilots decided not to land in Grozny or Makhachkala, despite the dispatchers' suggestions. The crew, having received information about the availability of other airports, decided to head to Aktau, which, as it turned out, turned out to be fatal.
Recorded conversations show that the pilots first reported a possible bird strike, and then mentioned an explosion of a gas cylinder on board. These versions presumably arose as the crew attempted to assess the nature of the damage in real time. However, despite the external damage to the aircraft, the pilots did not declare an on-board emergency, which may have affected coordination with ground services.
The crash occurred near the Kazakh city of Aktau. There were 67 people on board, of whom 38 died and 29 survived. The surviving passengers were evacuated and taken to local hospitals, where they received medical care. Many of them had serious injuries caused by the hard landing.
The transcript of the conversations also confirms the presence of an external impact on the aircraft, which probably caused the critical situation. Experts suggest that this impact could have been caused by technical malfunctions, weather conditions or the impact of a foreign object. The investigation is ongoing and the exact causes of the crash have not yet been established.