Anniversary of tragedy: Kazakhstan remembers AZAL plane crash tragedy video

One year after the Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) crash near Aktau, the tragedy continues to weigh heavily on residents and first responders, claiming 38 lives and leaving 29 people injured, Euronews reports.

A year has passed since the tragic Azerbaijan Airlines crash near Aktau, Kazakhstan, but memories of that day remain vivid for locals and first responders.

On December 25, 2024, at 11 am Astana time (7 am CET), Aktau airport’s air traffic control received an emergency call from an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane en route from Baku to Grozny, requesting an urgent landing.

The aircraft, scheduled to touch down at 11:25 am, never made it. Just five minutes later, it crashed between the airport and the nearby village of Akshukyr, approximately three kilometres short of the runway.

A total of 67 people were on board, including five crew members. The disaster claimed the lives of 38 passengers and crew, while 29 others survived, all sustaining injuries.

Doctors from the Mangystau Regional Emergency Medical Centre were the first to reach the scene of the crash. Ospan Orazbekov told Euronews that he witnessed the tragedy unfold right before his eyes.

"Together with a paramedic and an ambulance driver, I immediately drove to the airport. On the way, I saw the plane in the sky, moving extremely fast with its nose dipping toward the ground. I was hoping the pilots could land on the runway, but the plane flew past the airport toward the village of Akshukyr. I told the driver we had to go after it.

We were driving, keeping our eyes on the plane, but then black smoke appeared. We sped up and tried to get there as quickly as possible. When we arrived, we saw that the aircraft had broken into two parts,

The front section was on fire, so we immediately went to the tail section because there were people there. We did everything we could. We unbuckled eight injured passengers. Then I went deeper into the wreckage to see if there were children or pregnant women inside.

I remember every face of every person I rescued from the plane, and I still see them,” Orazbekov recalled.

In the immediate aftermath of the crash, local residents hurried to the scene. Passersby in passing vehicles stopped to help passengers escape the wreckage, while the injured were transported to the Mangystau Regional Multidisciplinary Hospital.

Doctors swiftly convened an emergency meeting and readied beds and treatment areas. In total, 29 people were admitted to hospitals in Aktau, with eleven in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

"The patients were in critical condition. Many suffered head and brain injuries, broken clavicles, arms and shoulders. Some patients had every single rib broken," says Bakytzhan Koybekov, head of ICU at the Mangystau Regional Multidisciplinary Hospital.

Residents of Aktau responded immediately to the emergency. At the city’s blood centre, volunteers lined up to donate blood and support the crash victims.

"As doctors, we deal with many emergencies every day, but we didn’t expect so many people at once. On the same day, Russian citizens were evacuated from the ICU by helicopter. Later, patients from Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan were gradually evacuated as their conditions stabilised. All patients received treatment and returned safely to their countries. We did everything we could. I’m grateful to my team, who worked day and night to care for the patients," he added.

Kazakhstan’s Emergency Ministry reported that the fire was extinguished within 30 minutes of the crash.

In February, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Transport released a preliminary report on Flight 8243, stating that as the plane approached Grozny from Baku, it was struck twice within seconds by, as later confirmed, the warheads of Russian air defence missiles.

The pilots requested diversion to Mineralnye Vody or Makhachkala airports, but Russian air traffic controllers denied the request. The crew declared an emergency and requested an emergency landing at Aktau International Airport in Kazakhstan.

They were granted permission, but after two failed approaches, the aircraft crashed on the third attempt.

On December 28, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for the “tragic incident” involving the plane in Russian airspace, claiming that Ukrainian drones had targeted Grozny. 

On October 9, this year, during a meeting with Aliyev in Dushanbe, Putin officially acknowledged that the Azerbaijani passenger plane had been shot down by Russian air defences.

By Jeyhun Aghazada