A man who shared his video from the unfortunate Azerbaijan Airlines flight heading to Russia survived the crash.
A video of the man onboard recorded himself while the plane was facing turbulence, moments before the crash, had gone viral on social media. The man was seen saying his prayers aloud as the plane before the crash.
The video captured scenes inside planes with passengers screaming aloud as the plane faced intense turbulence in midair. Earlier, it was unknown if he was alive or dead.
However, he later shared his video informing people that he was alive and fine and suffered only minor injuries. The Embraer 190 aircraft was supposed to fly northwest from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to the city of Grozny in Chechnya in southern Russia, but instead diverted far off course across the Caspian Sea.
The plane, carrying 62 passengers and five crew members, was forced to make an emergency landing, with 29 survivors rescued by authorities.
Read more: Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashes in Kazakhstan, killing 38
The aircraft was supposed to fly northwest from Baku to Grozny but instead flew across the Caspian Sea and went down near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.
Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev told Russia’s Interfax news agency that 38 people had been killed, while the Kazakh emergency situations ministry reported “29 survivors, including three children, have been hospitalised”.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev declared Thursday a day of mourning and cancelled a planned visit to Russia for an informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a grouping of former Soviet nations.
In the footage shared by Russian media outlet RT, a passenger was seen bleeding from the head, while another attempted to exit the aircraft.
Aliyev’s office said the president “ordered the prompt initiation of urgent measures to investigate the causes of the disaster”.
“I extend my condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in the crash… and wish a speedy recovery to the injured,” Aliyev said in a social media post.