Damage to AZAL aircraft occurred before impact – Kazakh Transport Ministry

A report released by the Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Kazakhstan states that the damage to the Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190-100 that crashed near Aktau occurred before impact with the ground, Kazinform News Agency reports.

Damage to aircraft occurred before impact
Phоtо credit: Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Kazakhstan

The data obtained during the investigation, including photographs and graphs, confirms damage to hydraulic systems.

The report shows photographs and a graph containing evidence of damage to the hydraulic systems before impact. This damage was likely caused by external objects penetrating the aircraft components.

“Penetration damage to the aircraft indicates penetration of external objects into the aircraft structure,” the report says.

Azerbaijan Airlines plane
Phоtо credit: Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Kazakhstan

The consequence of this damage was a loss of hydraulic fluid and pressure, which led to the failure of the aircraft control systems.

“Most of the penetration damage is in the vertical stabilizer and stabilizer. Visual inspection of the through damages shows that some of them are through, while others are blind/non-through damages. The Investigation Commission, in the presence of Authorized Representatives of the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Republic of Azerbaijan and law enforcement agencies of the Republic of Kazakhstan, carried out actions to extract foreign objects that could have been preserved in the blind damages, in order to send them for additional forensic examination. As a result, a large number of foreign objects were extracted from the blind damages,” ministry explained in the report.

The loss of hydraulic fluid and pressure in the systems led to the failure of aircraft control. As previously reported, the pressure in the third hydraulic system dropped to 0 PSI at 05:13:34, and the fluid level to 0%. At 05:13:47, the "HYD 2 LOW PRESS" alarm was activated, indicating a drop in the pressure in the first hydraulic system to 0 PSI.

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