Azerbaijan honors memory of plane crash victims and announces start of process of decoding “black box” data
A farewell ceremony for the deceased crew members of the AZAL plane was held in Baku. We are talking about pilots Igor Kshnyakin and Alexander Kalyaninov, as well as flight attendant Hokuma Aliyeva. It is also reported that the bodies of 24 Azerbaijani citizens killed in the plane crash were delivered from Aktau to Baku, after which they will be handed over to their families.
The ceremony was attended by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his wife Mehriban Aliyeva.
In his speech at the event, AZAL Vice President Ilham Amirov said that the plane was exposed to three external influences before the crash. He assured that the commission created will establish the causes of the crash and the public will be informed about this. Now, according to Amirov, the process of decoding the “black box” data is underway.
The day before, during a telephone conversation with Aliyev, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized for the fact that "a tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace." He also noted that the Embraer tried to land at Grozny airport, but the city was attacked by Ukrainian drones, and the Russian air defense system repelled these attacks.
There were 67 people on board the plane, which was flying from Baku to Grozny, of which 42 were citizens of Azerbaijan, 16 were Russian, 6 were Kazakh, and 3 were Kyrgyz. It is reported that 29 passengers survived.
