Azerbaijani officials told Euronews on Thursday that they believe a Russian surface-to-air missile was the cause of the crash of Azerbaijan Airlines Flight J2-8243, which killed more than 30 passengers on the plane on Wednesday.
Embraer 190 airliner, flying The ship, carrying 67 people from Azerbaijan's capital Baku to Chechnya's capital Grozny, veered hundreds of miles off course on Christmas Day and sank near the Kazakh city of Aktau.
Russian officials suggested the plane attempted an emergency landing after colliding with a bird, while Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev pointed to bad weather in the region. However, Ukrainian authorities quickly claimed the crash was caused by a Russian missile launch, and some aviation experts backed Ukraine's claim on Wednesday night.
Aviation experts noted that Flight J2-8243 passed through an area where heavy Russian anti-aircraft fire was directed at Ukrainian drones. Russian aviation official claimed The diversion was necessary because of heavy fog on the ground in Grozny, but analysts said this did not explain why the plane flew to the other side of the Caspian Sea before touching down in Kazakhstan.
“Video of the situation surrounding the wreckage and the airspace security environment in southwestern Russia indicates that the aircraft may have come under some form of anti-aircraft fire.” said Matt Boley is the chief information officer at Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security company.
Andriy Kovalenko, head of counter-disinformation at Ukraine's military intelligence service, said: said On Wednesday, the plane was apparently brought down by Russian fire, but “recognizing that this is an inconvenience for everyone, efforts will be made to cover it up, including holes in the rest of the aircraft. ”
Kovalenko was hinting at Azerbaijan. effort To forge stronger ties with Russia, even as Armenia, Russia's former regional ally and Azerbaijan's bitter rival, has distanced itself from Moscow. In September 2023, Armenia was furious that Russian “peacekeepers” were left alone while Muslim Azerbaijani forces brutally captured and ethnically cleansed Christian Armenians from the Nagorno-Karabakh region. are.
Azerbaijani President Aliyev was visiting Russia on Wednesday, but cut short his visit and returned home following a plane crash.
Kovalenko pointed out that video footage from the cabin of Flight J2-8243 has been released. Posted Survivors of the crash posted on social media that they “showed punctured life jackets and other damage” consistent with the debris that tore the plane apart.
“During the flight, an explosion of an air defense missile with debris created a hole in the fuselage and damaged aircraft systems. Everything is well documented and clearly recorded,” he said.
https://twitter.com/AndriKovalenko/status/1872188200363622568
“Russia should have closed the airspace over Grozny, but failed to do so. The plane was damaged by Russian forces and instead of making an emergency landing in Grozny to save lives, it was sent to Kazakhstan,” the Ukrainian intelligence officer charged. did.
On Wednesday, a growing number of reporters and aviation experts noted damage to the plane's fuselage that was inconsistent with a bird strike and looked more like a shrapnel puncture wound or a bullet hole.
“The debris pattern we saw looks very similar to an air defense missile exploding in the rear and left side of the aircraft,” said Justin Crump, an analyst at risk advisory firm Civiline. said BBC on Thursday.
Flightradar24, which tracks air traffic around the world in real time; said Changes in flight J2-8243's course and altitude before it crashed indicated that the aircraft had been “subjected to GPS jamming and spoofing near Grozny.”
The crash of an Azerbaijani plane in Kazakhstan has drawn attention to passenger plane accidents around the world this year. (Photo by Omar Zaghloul/Anadolu, Getty Images)
Azerbaijan Airlines and the Azerbaijani government have not yet issued an official statement deviating from the “bird strike” story, but according to Azerbaijani government officials. said Euronews on Thursday reported that the plane was indeed damaged by a Russian missile. The Russian government then rejected the pilots' desperate requests for an emergency landing, forcing the plane to fly across the Caspian Sea to Aktau in Kazakhstan.
Baku-based international media AnewZ, citing Azerbaijani officials, said the missile was fired by Russia's Pantsir-S air defense system while passing over Chechnya. At the time, Russian forces in the region were trying to shoot down a Ukrainian drone, as confirmed by Chechen officials.
“If this preliminary data is confirmed, it would be the second time in a decade that the Russian military has destroyed a civilian aircraft, the first being the crash of flight MH17 in Ukraine. are also among the victims,” Euronews pointed out. Sixteen of the passengers on Flight J2-8243 were reportedly Russian nationals.
