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Russian anti-aircraft fire may have caused a plane crash in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, U.S. and regional officials say.
The Azerbaijan Airlines flight was en route from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny in Chechnya in southern Russia when it turned and crash-landed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people. 29 passengers survived.
Most of the people on board the Embraer 190 were Azerbaijani nationals. There were 16 Russians on board, as well as several nationals from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
In a preliminary official report on Wednesday, Russia said the plane had rescheduled to land in Grozny due to heavy fog and was aiming to land in Kazakhstan, where it crashed, possibly after colliding with a flock of birds. The same day, Azerbaijan’s president said he was informed that the plane had been diverted due to bad weather.
But U.S., regional and Ukrainian experts and officials have questioned this, citing evidence that Russian air defense forces were operating over Grozny at the time in response to a Ukrainian drone attack. They also cited images of what appeared to be debris damage to the inside and tail of the wrecked plane.
U.S. officials said there were early signs that Russian anti-aircraft systems may have attacked the aircraft. If true, the incident would further highlight Russia’s recklessness since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the official added.
Andriy Kovalenko, a senior official of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, posted on Telegram: “Russia was supposed to close the airspace over Grozny, but they didn’t. . . The plane was damaged by Russian forces and instead of making an emergency landing in Grozny and saving people’s lives, it was sent to Kazakhstan.”
A senior Ukrainian official confirmed to the Financial Times that Kiev believes the plane was likely hit by Russian air defense systems.
Aviation security agency Osprey said: “Follow-up footage of the wreckage and the state of the airspace security environment in southwestern Russia indicate that the aircraft may have been hit by some form of anti-aircraft fire.”
A senior Caucasian official said evidence showed the plane was damaged by air defenses over the Grozny region.
“If[Russian authorities]were going to use jamming and anti-aircraft systems, they should have closed the airspace,” the official told the FT. “The most reasonable explanation for why they didn’t do that is that they were incompetent.”
If an investigation led by Kazakh authorities finds that the plane collided with an air defense system, the incident will bring to mind the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. The crash, which killed 298 people, was caused by a fired missile. The investigation into the crime committed by Russian-controlled proxy fighters in eastern Ukraine has ended.
Data from the Flightradar24 tracking service showed that Azerbaijani planes continually stopped registering their locations once they arrived in the North Caucasus region, suggesting that their GPS was being jammed.
However, Flightradar24 found that some identification information was available indicating that the plane made it as far as Grozny before changing course towards Kazakhstan.
Images from the crash site show that most of the front of the plane was half destroyed, but much of the tail remained intact. Military experts said the tail of the plane showed impact marks and small holes that could be consistent with an attack by a surface-to-air missile defense system.
“The hole in the fuselage is very similar to the impact of the type of projectile that tends to be equipped on air-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft missiles launched by air defense systems such as Pantsir S1,” said the military analyst. said Ruslan Leviev, head of the Conflict Intelligence Team, an open source research group.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was too early to speculate on the cause of the crash. Kazakh authorities said it would be “unethical” to condemn the missile launch before the investigation was concluded.
A spokesperson for the National Security Council said the U.S. confirmed the report but referred reporters to officials in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan as the investigation continues.
The plane’s manufacturer, Embraer, said in a statement that it was “deeply saddened by this incident.”
“Our thoughts and deepest sympathies go out to the families, friends, colleagues and loved ones affected by this incident. We are closely monitoring the situation and will continue to do our best to support the relevant authorities. “We will continue to work on this,” the company said.
Cartographer: Stephen Barnard
