This exclusive narrative is from a detailed conversation CAT Europe Editor Chris Long had with the Air Astana flight crew, presenting their in-the-cockpit perspective.

The first that Captain Vyacheslav Aushev learnt of the task was whilst he was in another aircraft, having arrived in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where he was instructed to call crew control during checkout. He was then advised that he was planned to collect an Embraer 190 from the military airport at Alverca, near Lisbon, and return it via a refuelling stop at Minsk, Belarus, to the home base at Nur Sultan, Kazakhstan’s capital. This with no fare-paying passengers, but with three maintenance engineers returning to base. The aircraft was due out of a “C” maintenance check but, because of repeated delays totalling 11 days, the original aircraft captain was no longer able to take the flight, hence the short notice.