Pilot Oleksandr Kalyaninov, who studied at Kropyvnytskyi Flight Academy, died in plane crash in Kazakhstan. PHOTO
Pilot Oleksandr Kalyaninov, who was studying at the Kropyvnytskyi Flight Academy, died in the plane crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan on 25 December. Oleksandr was the co-pilot of Azerbaijan Airlines.
This was reported by the Ukrainian State Flight Academy, Censor.NET reports.
Oleksandr Kalyaninov was born in 1992. Since childhood, he has dreamed of becoming a pilot, like his father, and connecting his life with the sky.
On 6 April 2021, Oleksandr received a Master's degree in Aviation Transport while studying at the Ukrainian State Flight Academy. He studied at the Flight Operations Faculty under the educational and professional programme "Aircraft Flight Operations" and received the qualifications of "Pilot Engineer" and "Research Engineer".
"Oleksandr was very intelligent, erudite, fluent in several foreign languages, very honest and always ready to help. During the plane crash, risking his own life, he saved dozens of lives in the line of duty," the school said.
Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan
On 25 December, an Embraer plane en route from Baku to Grozny, Russia, crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau.
38 people were killed in the downing of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane. According to one version in the media, the plane could have been hit by air defence systems over the territory of the Russian Federation.
According to media reports, a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane in Aktau.
The head of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, said that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane was shot down by the Russian Pantsir-S1 air defence system.
Azerbaijan expects Russia to officially recognise the downing of the passenger plane, Reuters reports.
The spokesman for the Russian dictator Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the information about Russia's involvement in the crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane in Kazakhstan.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed his condolences to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and the Azerbaijani people over the crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines flight and said that the facts indicate that Russia is responsible for the tragedy.
