BAKU, Azerbaijan, December 29. Video evidence provides grounds to assert that the AZAL (Azerbaijan Airlines) plane crash occurred due to external factors, said Rashad Nabiyev, Azerbaijan's Minister of Digital Development and Transport, Trend reports.
Speaking during a farewell ceremony for the three crew members who died in the accident near Aktau at Heydar Aliyev International Airport, where the remains of pilots Igor Kshnyakin, Alexander Kalyaninov, and flight attendant Hokuma Aliyeva were brought, Nabiyev stated:
"Eyewitness testimonies, along with videos circulating on social media and news outlets showing the wreckage of the plane, give us full grounds to assert that the aircraft crashed due to physical and technical external impacts."
On December 25, a passenger plane, an Embraer 190, belonging to AZAL, flying on the Baku-Grozny route, crashed 3 kilometers from Aktau airport.
A total of 67 people (62 passengers and 5 crew members) were on board the plane.
On December 26, 14 victims and the bodies of four dead were taken to Azerbaijan.
On December 28, the bodies of the three crew members—Kshnyakin, Kalyaninov, and Aliyeva—along with the remains of 21 passengers, were transported back to Azerbaijan.