Survivor of Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash that killed 38 people recalls moment she felt ‘explosion close to leg’
A woman who survived the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash that killed 38 people has said she felt an explosion close to her leg.
The plane had been carrying 67 people on Christmas Day when it crash landed in Kazakhstan, and it is strongly believed it was down to a Russian missile strike from the country's air defence systems.
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Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliyev declared that he could say 'with complete clarity that the plane was shot down by Russia', and accused Russia of trying to 'hush up' the matter for several days.
He said that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had apologised to him, but demanded that Russia 'must admit its guilt' and 'punish the guilty, bring them to criminal responsibility and pay compensation to the Azerbaijani state, the injured passengers and crew members'.
One of the survivors of the plane crash was passenger Jerova Salihat, who spoke from her hospital bed to say she felt an explosion close to her leg.
"Something exploded near my leg," she said of the thing that caused the plane to crash. "I don't know what exploded. I don't know how it happened either.
"[The pilot] thought he was going to land, but he didn't land, [and there was an] explosion when he went up."
Salihat has joined the ranks of the survivors of the crash who have spoken about the plane being hit with explosions, with flight attendant Zulfugar Asadov saying he was hit in the arm by shrapnel and members of the cabin crew saying there were 'three explosions outside the aircraft' while they were over Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.
The plane crash landed in Kazakhstan after the captain decided not to attempt a landing in the Caspian Sea, with the plane breaking into two parts and the front exploding in a fireball.
US military sources back up the idea that the passenger plane was shot down by Russian weapons after it set off from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku and had been heading for Grozny.
Subhonkul Rakhimov, a passenger on board the flight, said he thought he was going to die in the crash and felt his body twisting before something it it and everything went silent.
He could then hear people moaning, which is when he realised that he had survived and he 'didn't know what to do'.
Flight attendant Hokuma Aliyeva had tried to reassure passengers in the final moments before the plane crashed that 'everything will be fine', but she and many others sadly died in the crash.
Asadov, her colleague, said they asked passengers to stay calm and remain in their seats, adding that what saved the lives of some on board the plane was it breaking up when it landed.
He said: "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."
Topics: World News, Russia
Joe Harker