By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

Aviation experts said Thursday that Russian air defense fire was likely responsible for the Azerbaijani plane crash the day before that killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured.

Two days after a plane bound for Russia crashed in Kazakhstan, killing dozens of passengers, the White House said there was reason to believe Russia was responsible.

In a telephone news conference with reporters on Dec 27, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said there were “some early indications that would certainly point to the possibility that this jet was brought down by Russian air defence systems”.

“That said, there’s an ongoing investigation right now,” he added. “Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are conducting this jointly. We have offered our assistance to that investigation.”

The plane, an Embraer 190 airliner operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, was travelling from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Grozny, Russia, when it crashed on Dec 25 on the shore of the Caspian Sea, near Aktau in Kazakhstan. Of the 67 people on board, 38 died, including passengers and crew. Most of the plane’s fuselage was severely burned.

As investigators focused on Russian air defences as the probable cause of the Christmas Day crash, the aviation authorities in Moscow suggested a different culprit. In a statement on Dec 27, Russia said Ukrainian drone attacks might have played a role. But officials in Azerbaijan dispute that claim.

 Rasim Musabayov, a member of the National Assembly of Azerbaijan, said on Dec 27 that all evidence pointed to the plane being damaged by a Russian missile. On top of demanding an apology from Russia, he said Moscow should explain why the damaged plane was not allowed to land at other Russian airports near Grozny.

“If someone thinks that we are allies with Russia and therefore we would close our eyes on everything, then they are mistaken,” Musabayov said in a phone interview.

“There aren’t that many countries that are on good terms with Russia now,” he added. “If Moscow doesn’t make the right steps in this situation, the list might get shorter.”

Here is what is known about the crash.

 

The Flight to Grozny

The Embraer 190 airliner was making a regular flight on Dec 25 from Baku to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya in Russia, on the other side of the Caucasus Mountains.

That morning, aerial battles between drones, launched by Ukraine, and Russian air defence systems were taking place in the area around Grozny and across the North Caucasus, according to residents and local news media reports.

Ukrainian military and intelligence officials have taken credit for a string of recent drone strikes aimed at Chechen military facilities in and around Grozny over the past month but did not comment on any specific attacks on the morning the plane crashed.

Once in Russian airspace, the plane stopped sending radar information. Flightradar24, a flight tracking service, said the airliner had been subjected to Global Positioning System jamming near Grozny.

On Dec 25, Russian state news agencies, citing the airport in Grozny, reported that on approach to that city, the flight was diverted because of fog. Soon after the crash, the agencies cited the country’s state aviation authority statement that the plane had hit a flock of birds, causing it to attempt an emergency landing.

Aviation experts cast doubt on that assertion, pointing to the military activity near the flight path at the time, and videos and images.

In the statement on Dec 27, the Russian authorities suggested that an order was made for all aircraft to leave the area around Grozny because of Ukrainian drone activity.

 

Issues with Altitude Control

While on its approach to Aktau, on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, the plane again began to send radar information. That data suggested that the pilots struggled with altitude control. According to Flightradar24, data received from the plane showed that its vertical speed oscillated more than 100 times during the final 74 minutes of the journey.

Experts suggested the plane probably was rendered uncontrollable because its electrical and hydraulic systems had been severely damaged.

“You see an aeroplane flying wild, wild manoeuvres with strong fluctuations in the course and the flight altitude,” said Heinrich Grossbongardt, an aviation industry expert in Hamburg, Germany.

Kazakhstan’s Transport Minister Marat Karabayev said the plane had experienced a major failure in its control systems before it entered his country’s airspace, according to Kazinform, a state news agency.

 

Investigators Are Focusing on Russian Air Defence

In Azerbaijan, investigators believe a Russian Pantsir-S1 air defence system damaged the plane, according to two people in Baku who were briefed on the inquiry and spoke anonymously as the investigation was ongoing.

On Dec 27, Azerbaijan Airlines said it had suspended regular flights to eight Russian cities. It added that based on the preliminary results of the Azerbaijani investigation, the plane had suffered “physical and technical external interference”. It has also stopped flights to Makhachkala in neighbouring Dagestan.

Azerbaijan’s Transport Minister Rashad Nabiyev told the country’s state-run news agency APA on Dec 27 that the plane crashed because of “external interference”.

“However, it will be up to investigators to determine what kind of weapon did that,” Mr Nabiyev said. He added that surviving passengers told investigators they heard an explosion while they were flying above Grozny, and that one of the flight attendants was injured.

Russian pro-military bloggers have also pointed a finger at Russian air defences. Mr Yuri Podolyaka, a popular blogger, said in a post on Telegram on Dec 25 that the airplane most likely had been “incidentally shot down by an air defence system”.

According to a video verified by The New York Times, the tail section of the aircraft was peppered with dozens of small holes.

The Russian authorities have said the plane had been diverted from its original path and have offered differing explanations for why, including that the flight was diverted because of fog and that the plane was hit by birds.

But in a statement on Dec 27, the head of Rosaviatsia, the Russian aviation agency, said that as the airliner had been heading towards Grozny, the city’s infrastructure was being attacked by Ukrainian drones. Due to the attack, he said, an order was made for all aircraft to leave the affected airspace and the Azerbaijani jet made two failed attempts to land in Grozny.

Three videos geolocated by online analysts and verified by The New York Times show between one and three drones flying south-west of Grozny on the morning of Dec 25 in roughly the same area and time as the Azerbaijan Airlines jet.

“The pilot was offered other airports,” said Dmitry Yadrov, head of Russia’s aviation agency. “He decided to fly to Aktau.”

Representatives of the airline did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told reporters on Dec 27 that Russia cannot “offer any theories until the investigation comes up with some results”.

Osprey CEO Andrew Nicholson said that the company had issued more than 200 alerts regarding drone attacks and air defense systems in Russia during the war.

“This incident is a stark reminder of why we do what we do,” Nicholson posted online. “It is painful to know that despite our efforts, lives were lost in a way that could have been avoided.”

Yan Matveyev, an independent Russian military expert, noted that images of the crashed plane’s tail reveal the damage compatible with shrapnel from a small surface-to-air missiles, such as the Pantsyr-S1 air defense system.

“It looks like the tail section of the plane was damaged by some missile fragments,” he said.

In this image released by the Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service, rescuers prepare to carry a wounded passenger near the Kazakhstani city of Aktau, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024, after a plane of Azerbaijani Airline crashed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologized to his Azerbaijani counterpart for what he called a “tragic incident” following the crash of an Azerbaijani airliner in Kazakhstan that killed 38 people but stopped short of acknowledging that Moscow was responsible.

 

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