New Delhi:
The Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed near Kazakhstan’s Aqtau on Christmas Day – while en route from Baku to Grozny in Russia – may have been “accidentally struck” by a Russian surface-to-air missile or antiaircraft fire, military experts cited in multiple news reports have suggested.
Thirty-eight of the 67 people on board, at least 16 of whom were Russians, were killed.
An inquiry is ongoing, but aviation experts cited in some foreign media reports, such as those by the Wall Street Journal, Euronews, and news agency AFP, have pointed to holes in the plane’s fuselage, and marks on the tail section, as being consistent with damage from shrapnel from missiles.
It has also been pointed out the Azerbaijan Airlines plane was flying into an area where Ukraine drone activity had been reported, and that Grozny – the Chechnya capital and a key target for Kyiv as the war with Russia stretches to a third year – is heavily defended by anti-aircraft weaponry.
A Russian military blogger, Yury Podolyaka, told news agency AFP holes seen in (photos of) the wreckage of the plane were similar to damage caused by “anti-aircraft missile system”. The damage suggests the plane may have been “accidentally struck by an air-defence missile system”, he said.
And Matt Borie, the Chief Intelligence Officer at Osprey Flight Solutions, a United Kingdom-based aviation risk management firm, told the Journal, “The wreckage and circumstances around airspace security in southwest Russia indicates… the aircraft was hit by some form of antiaircraft fire.”
A Russian media outlet, Meduza, concurred in its assessment; in a report by The Kyiv Independent, it said footage of the damaged plane parts showed traces of a surface-to-air missile impact, and that similar damage had been observed in other civilian and military aircraft shot down by such missiles.
In addition, there are reports – that NDTV has not been able to substantiate – that Grozny had been attacked by Ukrainian drones a few weeks earlier, suggesting Russian air defences stationed there may have mistaken the Azerbaijan Airlines plane for a drone and engaged the Embraer 190 jet.
In fact, some of the survivors (all of whom had been seated in the tail section) claimed to have heard loud explosions outside the aircraft shortly after requests to land at Grozny airport were rejected.
These explosions, the UK’s Telegraph said, were the plane’s oxygen tanks exploding mid-air.
The plane then turned back across the Caspian Sea, possibly to return to Kazakhstan, but a second (as yet unknown) emergency prompted a request to land at Aqtau instead. Unfortunately, the plane couldn’t even make it that far, crashing into a deserted field around three km from the airport.
Frightening visuals online showed it struggling to maintain altitude, slipping into a nosedive, and then slamming into the ground, causing the tail and fuselage to break apart. Azerbaijan Airlines initially said the crash was due to a flock of birds hitting the plane, but later withdrew the statement.
Russia Condemns Speculation
“We need to await the end of the investigation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, while Kazakh Senate speaker Maulen Ashimbayev was quoted by Russia’s TASS news agency as saying it is “not possible”, at this time, to say what may have damaged the plane.
“Real experts are looking… they will make their conclusions. Neither Kazakhstan nor Russia nor Azerbaijan, of course, are interested in hiding information. It will be brought to the public,” he said.
