Azerbaijan Airways airplane crash in Kazakhstan

Hypothesis was mounting Friday that Russia’s army might have had a task within the Azerbaijan Airways airplane crash that killed 38 folks and left 29 survivors injured in Kazakhstan on Christmas day, with specialists casting doubt on Moscow’s suggestion {that a} chicken strike was accountable.

Azerbaijan Airways Flight 8243, an Embraer 190 plane, was flying from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to town of Grozny in Russia’s North Caucasus area Wednesday when it was diverted for causes that have been nonetheless unclear two days later. In some unspecified time in the future through the flight the airplane’s GPS monitoring was reportedly jammed, resulting in important deviations within the flightpath.

The airplane crashed whereas attempting to achieve one other airport in Aktau, in western Kazakhstan, after flying east throughout the Caspian Sea. It got here down and burst right into a ball of flames solely about two miles from the Aktau airport.

Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia all opened investigations into the reason for the crash, but it surely was Russia going through essentially the most pointed questions two days later. The Kremlin has urged folks to not leap to conclusions, and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, who’s solid nearer ties between his nation and Russia throughout his 20 years in energy, additionally stated it was too quickly to take a position.

“The knowledge supplied to me is that the airplane modified its course between Baku and Grozny because of worsening climate circumstances and headed to Aktau airport, the place it crashed upon touchdown,” he stated, as Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, prompt the chicken strike idea.

However a U.S. official informed CBS Information there have been early indications a Russian anti-aircraft system might have struck the airplane in a area the place Ukrainian and Russian forces have traded drone and rocket hearth for months. The official, who spoke to CBS Information on the situation of anonymity, stated if that proved to be true, it could additional underscore Russia’s recklessness in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Impartial aviation specialists have been additionally casting doubt on the chicken strike idea, and pointing to break seen on the airplane’s fuselage as proof of a extra nefarious doable clarification.

“It definitely doesn’t appear like a flock of birds,” stated CBS Information aviation security analyst Robert Sumwalt, a former chairman of the Nationwide Transportation Security Board.

“Birds do not fly at the kind of an altitude that the preliminary injury occurred on this airplane,” added Sumwalt.

­As an alternative, the injury bears the hallmarks of shrapnel from an airborne weapon, and British army veteran and safety analyst Justin Crump informed CBS Information’ accomplice community BBC Information that “the most probably speculation is that it was struck by an air protection missile — nearly definitely Russian.”

Azerbaijan Airways and Russia react to crash in Kazakhstan

Azerbaijan Airways, in a press release reported by worldwide information companies on Friday, stated the airplane skilled “exterior bodily and technical interference” throughout its flight, with out providing additional info. 

Dmitry Yadrov, the top of Russia’s nationwide aviation company Rosaviatsia, stated in a press release Friday that the Azerbaijani airplane crashed throughout or after a Ukrainian drone assault round Grozny, the place it had been scheduled to land. In keeping with The Related Press, Yadrov stated “the state of affairs within the space of Grozny airport was fairly tough” on the time, citing each the purported Ukrainian drone assault and heavy fog within the area.

He didn’t particularly deal with claims that the passenger jet had been hit by Russian air defenses.

Talking to reporters on a convention name, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov additionally declined to remark Friday on the claims of doable Russian involvement within the crash, saying it could be as much as investigators to find out the trigger.

Some survivors of the crash stated they heard an explosion earlier than the airplane went down.

“Ukrainian drones have been lively on the time, and that is commensurate with the whole lot we have seen with the pilots’ communication with air visitors management,” Crump informed the BBC.

Ukraine has relied closely on explosive drones to hit Russian army and infrastructure targets contained in the a lot bigger neighboring nation’s western territory over the past 12 months, and Russia typically shoots the weapons down with its air protection techniques.

For a lot of observers, the circumstances of the Azerbaijan Airways crash and the injury to the airplane’s wreckage recalled the downing of Malaysia Airways Flight 17 in 2014. That passenger jet was hit by a missile launched by Russian-backed forces over Jap Ukraine, killing all 298 folks on board.
 
Amongst these determined for solutions in the newest catastrophe in Kazakhstan are the survivors of the crash, together with one man who stated from a hospital mattress that he is been sitting subsequent to his spouse on the airplane when it crashed.

“I have never seen my spouse since,” he stated.
 
Investigators have recovered each of the so-called “black bins” — the flight information and cockpit voice recorders — from the crash website. Specialists from Brazil, the place the airplane was constructed, have been because of arrive in Kazakhstan Friday to assist retrieve and analyze the knowledge from them.

Because the formal investigations ramped up, Ukraine’s authorities referred to as on Friday for Russia to be held accountable for the crash, as Azerbaijan Airways reportedly halted scheduled providers to seven cities in Russia.