“All will be fine”, flight attendant who encouraged passengers on doomed plane did not make it
Chief flight attendant, Hokuma Aliyeva, is being hailed as a hero for bravely comforting passengers while pilot Captain Igor Kshnyakin and co-pilot Aleksandr Kalyaninov desperately tried to save the plane after it was struck by a Russian missile over Chechnya, Russia on Christmas day.
The pilots’ request to land the planes at the nearest airports within Russia were allegedly rebuffed by Russian officials, who, it was alleged, wanted the plane to crash into the Caspian sea and sink to the bottom.
The pilots bravely flew the Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8432 out of Russian airspace, out of the sea and into Kazakhstan before it crashed.
Meanwhile, the flight attendant’s voice could be heard over the tannoy while she attempted to calm the passengers.
In one clip, the flight attendant could be heard telling those onboard: ‘Everything will be fine’, as passengers look around the aircraft in distress.
It has now been confirmed that Aliyeva was among the 38 of the 67 on board who died.
Aliyeva’s family have since paid tribute to the ‘cheerful’ flight attendant, adding that ‘she always told us to be proud of her’.
It comes after Azerbaijan today said that it had found ‘external interference’ was responsible for the fatal crash amid a preliminary investigation and claims Russia downed the plane with a surface-to-air missile before trying to cover it up.
‘Based on the opinion of experts and on the words of eyewitnesses, it can be concluded that there was external interference,’ Azerbaijani transport minister, Rashad Nabiyev, told reporters.
‘It is necessary to find out from what kind of weapon,’ he added, citing reports from survivors of hearing ‘three explosions’ as the plane was over Grozny.
The development in the tragic story of Wednesday’s crash, which killed 38, came as a flight attendant on the stricken plane revealed he sustained a shrapnel wound as explosions outside rocked the doomed flight near Russia.
Crash survivor Zulfugar Asadov gave an extraordinary account of the flight, which crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, killing 38.
Mr Asadov – who was convinced he had died in the crash – said that he was ‘cut on the arm by an impact that occurred outside the plane’ after the plane aborted its attempts to land in Grozny, Russia, citing poor weather.
‘I grabbed a towel, bandaged my arm tightly, and [colleague] Aydan [Ragimli] helped me,’ he said. ‘We continued the flight.’
The flight attendant revealed that the pilot had sought to make an emergency landing in the Caspian ‘because the aircraft’s engine was malfunctioning’, but changed his mind and carried on towards Kazakhstan, fearing for the safety of passengers.
He spoke amid chilling accusations that Russia mistakenly targeted the plane with a surface-to-air missile, and then sought to block it from landing on its territory in the expectation it would sink in the Caspian Sea.
