Aviation specialists claimed Thursday that the Azerbaijani airliner crash the previous day, which killed 38 people and injured all 29 survivors, was most certainly caused by a Russian air defense fire.
The Embraer 190 operated by Azerbaijan Airlines was diverted for unspecified reasons on Wednesday while attempting to land in Aktau, Kazakhstan, after flying east across the Caspian Sea. The aircraft was on its way from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny, a city in the North Caucasus region of Russia.
About two kilometers from Aktau, the aircraft crashed. According to cellphone footage that has gone viral online, the plane made a sharp drop before colliding with the ground and exploding in a fireball.
In other film, the aircraft was seen resting upside down on the grass with a portion of its fuselage torn away from the wings.
On Thursday, national flags were flown at half-staff across Azerbaijan in remembrance of the crash victims. At noon, it observed a national minute of silence, with sirens blaring from trains and ships and traffic stopping.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated during a press conference on Wednesday that the weather had compelled the jet to deviate from its intended path, but that it was too soon to speculate on the cause of the tragedy.
According to the information I was given, the plane proceeded to Aktau airport, where it crashed upon landing, after altering its route between Baku and Grozny owing to deteriorating weather, he stated.
According to early data, the pilots diverted to Aktau after a bird strike caused an emergency on board, according to Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia.
Authorities in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan were silent on the crash’s potential cause, but one Azerbaijani legislator pointed the finger at Moscow. The plane was fired on while over Grozny, Rasim Musabekov told the Azerbaijani news outlet Turan, and he called on Russia to issue an official apology.
In honor of the victims of the Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 disaster near the Kazakhstani airport of Aktau, the national flag of Azerbaijan is flown at half-mast on Thursday, December 26, 2024, in the heart of Baku, Azerbaijan.Photo by Aziz Karimov/AP
Turan cited Musabekov as saying that those responsible for this must be charged with a crime and that victims should also receive compensation. Relationships will suffer if it doesn’t.
Some experts noted that holes in the plane’s tail area may have been caused by Russian air defense systems defending against a Ukrainian drone strike as the official accident inquiry got underway.
Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, and other areas in the North Caucasus had previously been targeted by Ukrainian drones. Despite the fact that federal officials did not mention it, a Chechen official claimed that another drone strike on the area was repulsed on Wednesday.
According to Mark Zee of OPSGroup, which keeps an eye on airports and airspace across the globe for threats, the examination of photos showing pieces of the downed aircraft suggests that a surface-to-air missile, or SAM, most likely struck it.
“At a high level, we’d put the probability of it being a SAM attack on the aircraft well into the 90-99% bracket,” he added, adding that there was still much more to look at.
The U.K.-based aviation security company Osprey jet Solutions alerted its customers that the Azerbaijan Airlines jet was probably shot down by a Russian military air defense system. After Western airlines stopped operating flights into Russia during the conflict, Osprey offers analysis for carriers that are still operating flights there.
According to Andrew Nicholson, CEO of Osprey, during the conflict, the corporation sent out more than 200 warnings about air defense systems and drone attacks in Russia.
Nicholson wrote on the internet that this incidence serves as a clear reminder of why we do what we do. Knowing that lives were lost in a situation that may have been prevented in spite of our efforts hurts.
Images of the wrecked plane’s tail show damage consistent with shrapnel from tiny surface-to-air missiles, like the Pantsyr-S1 air defense system, according to Yan Matveyev, an independent Russian military specialist.
According to him, it appears that some missile fragments damaged the plane’s tail portion.
Why the pilots chose to fly hundreds of miles east across the Caspian Sea rather than attempt to land at a nearby airport in Russia after the plane was struck is still unknown, Matveyev noted.
Matveyev stated that the crew might have been prevented from landing at another location in Russia, but it’s also possible that some of the plane’s systems continued to function for a while, leading them to assume they might make it and land normally.
The airliner was fired upon by a Russian Pantsyr-S air defense system as it approached Grozny, according to Caliber, an Azerbaijani news website with strong government ties. It questioned why, in spite of the suspected drone raid in the region, Russian officials did not close the airport. The president of Chechnya’s Security Council, Khamzat Kadyrov, stated that air defenses shot down drones that were assaulting the area on Wednesday.
Caliber also questioned why, after the jet was struck, Russian authorities forbade it from making an emergency landing at Grozny or other nearby Russian airports.
Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson for the Kremlin, told reporters that it would be incorrect to form conclusions before investigators have finished their investigation into the reports that the plane had been shot upon by air defense assets.
Maulen Ashimbayev, the speaker of Kazakhstan’s parliament, cautioned against drawing hasty judgments from images of the plane’s pieces, calling the claims of air defense fire baseless and immoral.
42 people of Azerbaijan, 16 citizens of Russia, 6 Kazakhs, and 3 citizens of Kyrgyzstan were on board the aircraft, according to Kazakh officials. Nine Russian survivors were flown to Moscow for medical care on Thursday by Russia’s Emergencies Ministry.
The Associated Press
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