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Pilots lauded for handling of crashed Azerbaijan plane

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Crew member and pilots given full honours in Baku ceremony

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Plane crashed after Russian air defences deployed against

Ukranian drones

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Russia's Putin apologised to Azerbaijan president for

'tragic

incident'

By Nailia Bagirova

BAKU, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Azerbaijan on Sunday paid

tribute to the pilots and passengers of the Azerbaijan Airlines

passenger plane that crashed in Kazakhstan killing 38 people

after Russian air defences were used against Ukrainian drones.

Flight J2-8243 crashed on Wednesday in a ball of fire

near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from

southern Russia where Ukrainian drones were attacking several

cities.

Captain Igor Kshnyakin and co-pilot Alexander

Kalyaninov, both ethnic Russians with Azerbaijan citizenship,

and Hokuma Aliyeva, a flight attendant, were given full honours

at a ceremony at the Alley of Honour in central Baku attended by

President Ilham Aliyev and his wife, Mehriban.

The pilots have been lauded in Azerbaijan for landing in a

way which allowed 29 people to survive but led to their own

deaths.

Azerbaijan's presidential office said that after the

yet-to-be explained incident over Russian airspace, the pilots

battled to control the plane - desperately trying to find a

landing spot.

With holes in the fuselage, some crew injured, passengers

praying for their lives in a de-pressurised cabin and the plane

spiralling out of control, the pilots flew across the Caspian

Sea towards their death in an crash landing.

"Only through the courage and professionalism of the pilots

was an emergency landing successfully carried out," Azerbaijan's

presidential office said.

The Alley of Honour is Azerbaijan's most sacred modern

burial ground - where prominent politicians, poets and

scientists are laid to rest, including Heydar Aliyev, the late

father of the current president.

Captain Kshnyakin's daughter, Anastasia Kshnyakina, said her

father was a dedicated pilot who took his responsibilities to

his passengers extremely seriously.

"My father always said: when I take off, I am responsible

not only for my life, but also for the lives of all passengers

and crew members," Kshnyakina said.

"With his last flight, he proved what a true hero should

be."

Russia's Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologised to

Azerbaijan's president for a "tragic incident" in Russian

airspace involving the plane which Baku said crashed after some

sort of external interference.

Four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of

Azerbaijan's investigation into the disaster told Reuters on

Thursday that Russian air defences had mistakenly shot it down.

The extremely rare publicised apology from Putin was the

closest Moscow has come to accepting some blame for Wednesday's

disaster, although the Kremlin statement did not say Russia had

shot down the plane, only noting that a criminal case had been

opened.

The Embraer ( ERJ ) passenger jet had flown from

Azerbaijan's capital Baku to Grozny, in Russia's southern

Chechnya region, before veering off hundreds of miles across the

Caspian Sea.