A BRAVE flight attendant of the doomed missile-blasted jet told terrified passengers that “everything will be fine”.
The crew, led by Captain Igor Kshnyakin and co-pilot Aleksandr Kalyaninov, made frantic efforts to save the plane after it was believed to have been hit by a missile over Chechnya, Russia.
The captains bravely managed to then fly the jet 186 miles out of Russian airspace, across the Caspian Sea, and into Kazakhstan before it crashed.
Sadly, the carrier confirmed the pilots and the chief flight attendant were among the 38 of the 67 on board who have died.
Chief flight attendant Hokuma Aliyeva’s voice could be heard over the tannoy during the flight as she tried to calm the passengers.
In one chilling video, she could be heard saying: “Everything will be fine.”
The family of Aliyeva have now paid tribute to the “cheerful person” saying “she always told us to be proud of her”.
Her family told news agency APA: “She had visited many countries and always told us to be proud of her.
“Once, after returning from a trip, she said their plane almost crashed… This time, the crash happened, and my daughter couldn’t survive.”
Azerbaijan Airlines published the name of its five crew members after recovering the bodies of the three who died.
Kshnyakin’s distraught wife Yana Vilkova, 46, said: “I don’t know, I don’t know anything yet. He’s a pilot.”
After a training course in Turkey he was praised for having “the ability to cope with eve the most difficult of circumstances”.
Farhad Nasirov, Deputy Head of the Flight Safety Department at Azerbaijan Airlines, recounted: “Before the flight, I had a meeting with both pilots in the briefing room in the morning.”
“They were in a good mood. It’s a pity that such a tragedy happened.”
Captain Kshnyakin reportedly had 15,000 hours worth of flying time, of which 11,200 hours were as a captain, euronews reported.
Flowers have now been laid outside the apartment building in Baku he lived in by children of a nearby school.
The Azerbaijani government said the cause of the crash was “external physical and technical interference”.
Analysts and Russian military bloggers say they believe the plane was shot down by a Russian surface-to-air missile.
One passenger told Reuters there was at least one loud bang as the flight approached its original destination of Grozny.
Subhonkul Rakhimov said: “I thought the plane was going to fall apart.
“It was as if it was drunk – not the same plane anymore.”
Post-impact, the distressed pilot requested to divert the aircraft to nearby airports but was denied permission. Consequently, they had no choice but to seek refuge by crossing the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan.
The block on flying to nearby Russian airports was accompanied by high-tech jamming of the damaged plane’s guidance systems.
The hero pilots also flew up and down as they tried to control the plane, transponder data shows, likely without stabilisers and hydraulic systems.
The other two, flight attendants Zulfugar Asadov and Aydan Rahimli, are reportedly in a stable condition in hospital.
Ukraine’s top spy, Kyrylo Budanov, said the plane was shot down by a Russian Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft missile.
The head of the country’s military intelligence told The War Zone it was the short range air defence system which brought the aircraft down.
But Russia would not comment on Friday when Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked about it.
On Thursday, Peskov said: “It would be wrong to put forward any hypotheses before the investigation’s conclusions.”
A Russian military blogger claims the plane was hit by the air defence missile while inside Russia.
And just one minute after the plane was hit, panicked Russia shut down air space, according to blogger VChK-OGPU.
The post claimed two drones were flying over the same part of Chechnya at the time – just after 8am.
Anti-air Pantsir missiles had been installed in the area of Grozny airport just a fortnight before, the blogger claimed.
MIRACLE SURVIVORS
Dozens of passengers, including children, miraculously survived the horror crash.
Around 150 emergency responders rushed to the scene, battling towering flames and thick plumes of black smoke rising ominously into the sky.
Meanwhile, an investigative team led by the deputy prosecutor general of Azerbaijan is working at the crash site.
They found the black box of the doomed flight which revealed the haunting final words the pilot said just moments before the plane crashed on the ground.
Struggling to control the plane, one of the pilots said: “I can’t execute, control is lost!”
The pilots tried to take the plane to three different airports but failed to land.
They lost communication with the ground crew before vanishing off the radar for 37 minutes.
Footage emerged showing terrified passengers making final video calls and leaving messages as the aircraft began to plunge.
Distressed people on board can be seen jumping out of their seats as they try to make sense of the situation.
As the oxygen masks dangled in the air, some passengers started to scream in horror, while others called their loved ones and began praying.
