Azerbaijan Airlines said “external physical and technical interference” caused the plane crash in Kazakhstan, which killed 38 of the 67 people on board.
On Christmas, an Embraer 190 aircraft operated by Azerbaijan Airlines flew from Baku to Grozny in Chechnya, Russia. The plane was ‘refused to land due to fog’ at Grozny and was diverted far out to the Caspian Sea, where it crashed in the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan, killing 38 and 29 survivors.
A day later, journalists said a Russian surface-to-air missile may have caused the fatal crash, which caused the plane to veer off the Caspian Sea and then crash into an open field. Reports said the missile at the plane was “fired accidentally”, a hypothesis the Kremlin has rejected and “warned against”.
The investigation is still ongoing but the pro-government Azerbaijani website Caliber said in a report, citing unnamed officials, that a missile from the Pantsir-S air defense system downed the plane.
Video from the crash site shows holes in the plane’s nose and damage from shrapnel from the missiles, as reported by military and aviation experts in foreign media reports such as the Wall Street Journal, Euronews and AFP.
Azerbaijan Airlines flight J28243 operated between Baku and Grozny, a city in Chechnya, Russia, which has been the target of Ukrainian drones and the site is defended by anti-aircraft weapons such as surface-to-air missiles.
Flightradar24, an online flight tracking website, earlier said the plane’s high-speed GPS had jammed, but did not say what caused it. The aircraft struggled to maintain altitude for an hour, with its vertical speed data graphs showing a steady altitude and then a sudden drop and fluctuation in its altitude before crashing.
passenger’s testimony
A passenger told Reuters there was at least one loud explosion as it approached Grozny. “I thought the plane was going to break up,” Subhonkul Rakhimov, one of the passengers, told Reuters from the hospital. He said he had begun reciting prayers and preparing for the end after hearing the bang.
After the loud bang, the plane behaved strangely as if it was drunk, Rakhimov said. “It looked like he was drunk – it wasn’t the same plane anymore,” he said.
While Russia says an investigation is ongoing, Reuters, citing four sources, reported that Russian air defenses had shot it down by mistake.
Russia’s aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said the plane’s captain was offered other airports to land, but he chose Aktau, Kazakhstan, Reuters reported.
