Kazakhstani aviation expert calls for transparent crash probe
The most renowned female pilot from Kazakhstan, the former head of the Department of Flight Operations of the Civil Aviation Committee, Toty Amirova, has commented on the plane crash near Aktau, which resulted in the deaths of 38 people.
On Wednesday, 25 December, a passenger plane belonging to Azerbaijan Airlines, flying the route from Baku (Azerbaijan) to Grozny (Russia), crashed near Aktau (Kazakhstan). The crash resulted in the deaths of 38 people, with 29 injured.
A cross-departmental investigative and operational group, led by the General Prosecutor's Office of Kazakhstan, has been appointed to investigate the disaster. The team includes experts from the Transport Prosecutor's Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
The well-known Kazakh pilot, Toty Amirova, spoke about the crash. In her opinion, the investigative commission should not only include representatives from the plane's manufacturer in Brazil but also representatives from the engine's manufacturing country, the United States.
"Many citizens fear that the commission might conceal the real cause of the accident, but I am confident that in our reality, nothing can be hidden. Over the past few years, technology has advanced significantly, and in modern planes, information from black boxes is replicated on servers. Some airlines have online recordings of black boxes, making their destruction almost impossible," said the pilot, as quoted by the service tengrinews.kz.
"Additionally, recordings of conversations between the dispatcher and pilots can even be listened to in real-time and are recorded on electronic media," added Toty Amirova.
According to PAP, Azerbaijan Airlines reported on Friday, 27 December, that according to preliminary findings, the plane experienced "external physical and technical interference."
Media reports suggest that the crash was caused by a Russian surface-to-air missile. This explanation for the tragedy is supported by an American official, quoted by the "Financial Times," who stated that the Azerbaijani passenger plane "may have been hit by a Russian air defence system."
