Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8L8243 was en route from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Grozny, in Russia, when it crashed in Kazakhstan on Friday killing all 38 people on board
Evidence is mounting today that Russian air defences may have mistakenly targeted an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane, resulting in a crash that killed 38 people, but the pilots final five words before the crash have led to confusion. The Embraer jet is believed to have been misidentified as a potential Ukrainian drone and hit by a Pantsir-S1 surface-to-air missile launched from the Naursky district of Chechnya.
The visible shrapnel damage on the intact rear section of the ill-fated aircraft, found at Aktau in Kazakhstan, aligns with such an attack, however the pilots final words have added a confusing element in understanding what happened. This theory is further supported by accounts from surviving passengers who reported an explosion outside the plane.
At the time of the incident, the plane was attempting to land as scheduled in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, a Russian region led by Vladimir Putin’s close ally, warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, which has been frequently targeted by Ukraine in recent weeks. It is suspected that Kadyrov’s forces fired the Pantsir-S1 at the plane.
A partial transcript of the alleged communication between the pilots and air traffic control suggests a catastrophic event, initially thought to be a bird strike. As they battled to control the aircraft carrying 67 passengers, the pilots sought assistance from several different airports across Russia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan.
At 8:12, the crew reported “both GPS lost” on the Embraer E190AR and requested help with “vectoring” to return to their departure airport in Baku, following the sudden closure of Grozny airport, reports the Mirror.
At 8:16, one of the pilots declared: “We have control failure, bird strike in the cockpit. Bird strike in the cockpit (inaudible)…” to which ground control responded: “AXY8243 I understand you, what kind of help do you need? ” The captain expressed his intention to return to his home airport Baku. However, at 8:17, the pilot changed course, announcing he was “heading to Mineralnye Vody’ – an airport in southern Russia.Ground control tell him to ” – an airport in southern Russia.
Ground control instructed him to “perform left orbit”, but the flight deck reported: “I can’t execute, control is lost.”
At 8:19, a pilot reported: “I can’t maintain 150, we have high pressure in the cabin,” and ground control acknowledged with: “AXY8243 understood you.”
At 8:20, the flight’s scheduled arrival time, the pilot radioed: “Left 360, my plane is losing control.”
By 8:21, the crew decided to head for Makhachkala, a Russian airport on the Caspian Sea. At 8:22, they reported a new issue: “Now the hydraulics have failed.”
Two minutes later, despite the earlier distress, the pilot seemed to retract, informing ground control in a chilling final five word statement before the impact: “The board [plane] is in order.”
However, communication issues arose as the air traffic controller struggled to hear the crew, asking: “You are very hard to hear…. tell me your altitude.”
Subsequently, the aircraft vanished from radar for 37 minutes before re-emerging as it attempted to land in Aktau.
Russian Telegram channel VChK-OGPU claimed air defence system of Chechen leader Kadyrov in naursky district likely attacked the plane. “The pilot mistook the strong blow to the plane for a collision with a flock of birds,” the channel disclosed.
It further commented: “In reality, the damage indicates that, most likely, a missile fired by air defence systems exploded near the plane. According to the materials we have obtained, that very strike occurred approximately 18 kilometres [11 miles] north, northwest of the airport in Grozny, over the Naursky district at an altitude of 2,400 metres [7,875ft].”
The channel also mentioned: “According to information from open sources, several military units are located in this area, including those with air defence systems…It is known that after the recent [Ukrainian] UAV attacks, several Pantsirs were also deployed in Chechnya.”
In other developments, Kazakhstan has rejected Russia’s request to join the probe into the crash, as has Azerbaijan. “This way we will have all the facts, the black box and the evidence,” a Kazakh commission member stated.
Meanwhile, independent investigative journalists from Volya Telegram channel observed that the drone activity in Grozny coincided with the expected arrival time of the downed plane. “The Pantsirs began shooting down everything that was in the air at that moment. Grozny airport was closed for flights….”
“But the passenger plane was already landing, which [air traffic control] prohibited at the last moment. The crew, according to the passengers, made two more attempts to land, after the last of which something exploded near the plane.”
“The damaged Embraer was prohibited from landing in Grozny and tried to reach the airport in Aktau, Kazakhstan, but crashed nearby. The crew did everything possible not to crash the plane, but to land it.”
The outlet clarified that “Traces of shrapnel damage are visible on the fuselage and vertical stabiliser (keel)” of the jet. In Russia, the closure of airports due to drone or missile threats is known as a “carpet plan”.
“Everyone switched on the mode which can be described as ‘Work according to the instructions’. The instructions don’t say to turn on your brain’.”
The outlet reported: “Russian propagandists are trying to spread the version that the plane collided with a Ukrainian drone.”
But this seems far-fetched. “A collision with an attack UAV would not have left shrapnel holes in a civilian airliner, but would have led to the destruction and fall of the aircraft immediately after the impact. Drones do not explode near the target, they explode upon impact with the target.”
A special aircraft of the Russian Emergencies Ministry has flown nine Russians, including one child, injured in yesterday’s plane crash to Moscow for treatment.
By this morning, war enthusiast Kadyrov had yet to comment on the horrific plane crash, which saw 29 survivors.
His nephew, Khamzat Kadyrov, who serves as the secretary of the Chechen Security Council, posted on his Instagram account that “everything was shot down”, accompanying the statement with a video showing a drone exploding.
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