Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbaijan E190tragedy

https://www.euronews.com/2024/12/25/azerbaijani-passenger-plane-crashes-near-kazakh-city-of-aktau

by bratao • 2 years ago

218 116 2 years ago

echelon• 2 years ago

There are videos of the crashed tail section that show shrapnel damage.

https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1hm0ijm/another_a...

There are videos filmed from within the cabin by the passengers showing shrapnel piercing clothing, limbs, seats, and more before the plane crashes.

https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1871952188383309872 (Holes in life vests)

https://www.reddit.com/r/world24x7hr/comments/1hm6prb/seats_... (Shrapnel damage)

https://www.reddit.com/r/TerrifyingAsFuck/comments/1hm4mf0/f... (Survivor before the plane crashes.)

(There are better videos, but I can't seem to find them again.)

There are reports that the plane was forced to divert course and fly over water after being hit. They were close to landing but were forced to reroute in the middle of their emergency.

More videos:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TerrifyingAsFuck/comments/1hlx7tc/c... (Crash. Other videos from other angles exist elsewhere online.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/world24x7hr/comments/1hm2ynv/shocki... (Tail section after crash)

https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/1hlxm7i/surviv... (Survivors exiting the tail section)

https://www.reddit.com/r/world24x7hr/comments/1hm7poq/miracl... (Survivor who filmed prior to the crash.)

I'll edit my comment with sources shortly.

jiggawatts• 2 years ago

A turbine blade or a few coming off can have the same effect as a bomb going off near the plane.

The pieces would tear through the plane like shrapnel from a weapon.

Military anti air missiles tend to use continuous rods to slice planes in half instead of fragmentation warheads that leave small holes. The aim is to sever control lines, not merely to puncture.

mrtksn2• 2 years ago

Turbine blades puncturing the tail section? I'm not convinced.

https://a.dropoverapp.com/cloud/download/8a578eea-0de8-4504-...

Unconfined engine failures do the fuselage damage in the proximity of the engine: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187775032...

penultimatename• 2 years ago

Several anti-aircraft systems can and do use fragmentation warheads. The BUK that shot down MH17 used one and the impact patterns are strikingly similar. Take a look at the “Reconstruction” section in this: https://libraryonline.erau.edu/online-full-text/ntsb/miscell...

morkalork• 2 years ago

Here's another incident you can compare against:

https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1hm0nf7/an_il22_t...

jemmyw• 2 years ago

They did in the past but they are designed now to disintegrate without taking the rest of the plane with them. Not that something unusual couldn't happen, but the engines are tested on this very thoroughly, based on previous accidents. Even when it has gone wrong in recent times it hasn't been catastrophic.

MoreMoore• 2 years ago

The Russian Buk, S-300 and S-400 largely use missiles with blast fragmentation.

For example, see the SAMS section here: https://www.gichd.org/fileadmin/uploads/gichd/Publications/G...

talldayo• 2 years ago

A turbine blade or a few coming off can have the same effect as a bomb going off near the plane.

Not in any passenger jet Embraer would get caught dead making. To my knowledge, most jet engines that are parallel to passenger sections require cowling that is reinforced to withstand a blade going loose.

gpderetta2• 2 years ago

Both engines were running at the time of impact as apparently the plane was being maneuvered via differential thrust.

quink6• 2 years ago

This whole thing feels more and more like a terrible nightmarish mash-up between MH17 and UA232. Every indication so far is that the flight crew here are absolute heroes for bringing down the plane as well as they did and it's likely that they should be remembered as heroically saving these lives, even if not their own.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232

rasz3• 2 years ago

more recent example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Wagner_Group_plane_crash

viraptor• 2 years ago

Checking out the video, it's amazing anyone survived that one. The construction of the planes is really impressive.

Qem2• 2 years ago

It's an Embraer E190: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_E-Jet_family

dralley3• 2 years ago

It's actually not terribly uncommon for crashes like this to be survivable, it just comes down to how shallow the decline ends up being and whether part of the fuselage snaps off and can get away from the burning fuel.

llamaimperative• 2 years ago

Russia: "Why does the world view us as either malicious or incompetent?"

Also Russia: Consistently fails to shoot down military aircraft and missiles, consistently shoots down passenger jets, consistently lies about both

pinewurst• 2 years ago

It’s not ‘either or’, it’s ‘and’.

djaouen• 2 years ago

I'm not saying they are not both, but there is definitely another reason lol

LtWorf• 2 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itavia_Flight_870

quink6• 2 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007 would surely be a bit more on the nose.

Especially since rt.com's only above-the-fold mention is "Russia-bound airliner crashes in ex-_Soviet_ state (VIDEO)". Nope, they don't need to use the word 'Kazakhstan', the 50% longer, much less descriptive but much more telling 'ex-Soviet state' is the one they're chosen.

squarefoot• 2 years ago

That one is completely unrelated to Russia, but sparked a lot of theories nonetheless due to the number of strange deaths hitting people among those who were somehow related to the activities in the Mediterranean sea that night. That includes unclear strange suicides among military personnel and two of the three pilots colliding at the Ramstein airbase disaster in 1988.

https://www-giannibarbacetto-it.translate.goog/2023/09/03/st...

mmastrac• 2 years ago

Not a great couple of decades for civilian air travel near Russian airspace, that's for sure.

lutusp3• 2 years ago

" ... as the Azerbaijan Airlines aircraft was approaching to land as scheduled."

Not as scheduled. The aircraft was diverted because of unacceptable weather at its primary destination -- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjwl1e6895qo : "The plane was en route to Grozny in Russia but it was diverted due to fog, the airline told the BBC."

Just saying, not excusing a hostile takedown, if that's what happened.

Diversion due to weather is a possibility anticipated by pilots, who normally carry extra fuel to accommodate the possibility of a diversion.

Ironically, because of the advent of drone attacks, a small aircraft like the Embraer 190 is more likely to be mistaken for hostile, compared to a full-size airliner.

closewith3• 2 years ago

The 190 is a small airliner, but definitely not a small aircraft.

lutusp3• 2 years ago

To avoid confusion I made sure to compare it to a full-size airliner. Interestingly, the aircraft's comparatively small size may have determined its fate (https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/26/asia/kazakhstan-plane-crash-q...) : "Russia may have downed Azerbaijani jet after confusing it for Ukrainian drone, US official says."

lutusp3• 2 years ago

From my earlier post:

Ironically, because of the advent of drone attacks, a small aircraft like the Embraer 190 is more likely to be mistaken for hostile, compared to a full-size airliner.

From CNN today (https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/26/asia/kazakhstan-plane-crash-q...) : "Russia may have downed Azerbaijani jet after confusing it for Ukrainian drone, US official says."

zmachinaz• 2 years ago

Just zooming into the tail section photo one can find on main stream media shows very suspicious signs of possible shrapnel hit ...

mrtksn2• 2 years ago

The shrapnel damage is pretty much established as there are multiple videos from inside the plane during this flight prior to the crash and you can see shrapnel damage on the fuselage. The survivors are also confirming it, and report that there was a bang(which might be confused for bird strike).

The question is, who shot the plane? This part is pure speculation at this point.

wat100005• 2 years ago

Is there anyone besides Russia who would have even been capable of shooting it down?

mlyle5• 2 years ago

The question is, who shot the plane? This part is pure speculation at this point.

It doesn't seem to be too difficult to put together what is likely. Grozny was under active drone attack at the time with air defenses working. And Russian air defense crews are pretty infamous for the jumpy trigger fingers at this point.

EA-3167• 2 years ago

In particular some of the damage has a "linear" quality that could plausibly come from a continuous rod warhead, which would be typical for a system like Pantsir. If as the Russians claim, it was a bird-strike, you wouldn't expect debris from the failure of the engine to make a pattern like that on the tail, unless the entire engine body broke apart.

Likewise, it didn't look like it was on a glide path, but rather that as discussed the hydraulics failed and they has to use thrust vectoring to fly. Obviously for very fine correction on final approach that becomes difficult, and the result was what we saw. All of that is consistent with a missile.

madihaa• 2 years ago

I've never seen such a clear plane crash, shocking

ArturZhdanN• 2 years ago

russia is a terrorist state

tiahura2• 2 years ago

Didn’t the US Navy just shoot one of its own down yesterday? Bleep happens.

Mawr• 2 years ago

Military incidents are very different. While all civilian planes carry transponders that identify them as such [1], military planes usually don't for obvious reasons, so they're much easier to misidentify as hostile.

[1] https://www.flightradar24.com/

bpodgursky• 2 years ago

The US Navy immediately announced what happened. Would you like to take bets on whether Russia fesses up to this one?

brnt2• 2 years ago

If I plot a line between Azerbaijan and Grozny, even if I go around the Caucasus over the Caspian, crashing in Kazakhstan seems way, way off.

dilyevsky2• 2 years ago

It diverted to Aktau after getting hit (by birds allegedly, but really - SAM). All other flights got diverted to Aktau too on that day.

brnt2• 2 years ago

Why that far? It's at least twice further from either beginning or destination than those are apart themselves.

londons_explore3• 2 years ago

There are reports of GPS jamming in the area (presumably as part of the Ukraine war). It seems plausible the pilots got lost.

Also, the time between the 'bird strike' and the crash is 20+ minutes, so they might have been trying to fly towards an airport with a larger runway or better emergency crews. Or maybe just an airport where repair crew were stationed to fix whatever was wrong with the plane.

margalabargala• 2 years ago

Doubtful. The Caspian Sea is a pretty unmistakeable landmark, even from high altitude, which the pilots would have seen.

I think it was more likely that that happened to be the direction the plane was pointing when it got hit by the missile and lost control surfaces, so that is where the pilots went.

TechSquidTV2• 2 years ago

Don't worry. I'm sure we'll do nothing about it. Again.

londons_explore3• 2 years ago

Team america, world police?

Or Team America, child-minder?

ralph842• 2 years ago

Why should “we” have anything to do with a flight between Azerbaijan and Russia that crashed in Kazakhstan?

brookst3• 2 years ago

Isn’t there a saying about triumph of evil and good people doing nothing?

TechSquidTV2• 2 years ago

Anything to let them get away with it again.

cynicalsecurity• 2 years ago

There is a possibility that the Azerbaijani passenger plane flying from Baku to Grozny was shot down by Russian air defense.
At least, the holes in the tail section look like traces of the striking elements of an anti-aircraft missile.
Surviving passenger of the plane Subhonkul Rakhimov said that the pilots tried to land the plane in Grozny three times: "The third time, something exploded. There was an explosion - I seemed to me that it was not inside the plane."

neom2• 2 years ago

I'm not sure if i'm reading this correctly or not, but the telegraph seems to report that the oxygen tank exploded? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/25/azerbaijan...

inamberclad• 2 years ago

I can't read through the paywall, but the numerous pictures of the skin with the metal folded in are a pretty dead giveaway that there was an explosion nearby that crippled the aircraft

neom2• 2 years ago

Here is another one, but, looks like RT is ultimately the source for both the articles so... hmmmm...right...

https://www.news18.com/world/oxygen-tank-inside-azerbaijan-a...

(news18 is CNN in India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN-News18)

ahmedfromtunis• 2 years ago

In a weird coincidence, this morning I watched an old video about the Iranian airliner downed by a US missile in the Persian gulf. These accidents are just horrible.

Qem2• 2 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

closewith3• 2 years ago

Hard to call 655 an accident. The missiles were deliberately fired at that aircraft.

It was either murder or manslaughter by negligence.

The same is true for this incident.

rodary• 2 years ago

This is odd.

I'm from the area, near Grozny. If Grozny were under fog, there are at least 10 airports nearby (Makhachkala, Vladikavkaz, Nalchik, Minvody, Rostov, Krasnodar etc) in the North Caucasus. Why would you fly east, across the Caspian Sea, toward Kazakhstan?

appreciatorBus2• 2 years ago

Obviously just speculation but if one was just fired upon, yet still in one piece and at least somewhat in control, a pilot might decide braving a longer diversion over a body of water to get away from the area, might be the safest course of action.

dralley3• 2 years ago

Also if you have control issues and a forced depressurization it might be best to avoid obstructions (like the Caucasus mountains) and significant course adjustments.

But from what I'm seeing the actual answer is that they were denied landing clearance, which is a bit suspicious.

quink6• 2 years ago

If I was a pilot flying into an at-war country I’d want my alternate to point in a different direction, the exact opposite course of the war zone ideally. Which this pretty much is.

And, to further that point, multiple airports you listed here are currently closed because of that war.

selimthegrim2• 2 years ago

Makhachkala has been taking international flights.

tiahura2• 2 years ago

Mountains

goodcanadian• 2 years ago

Grozny was not under fog.

phire• 2 years ago

They reported a dual GPS failure.

My guess, they picked an airport they knew well, that they could probably navigate to with nothing more than a compass and landmarks. And if they suspected GPS jamming (personally, a dual GPS failure over Russia would be my first guess) they would be biased towards an airport far away from an active war zone.

I am curious why they didn't divert back to their departure airport at Baku. It's roughly the same distance and surely they knew that airport even better, and could just follow the coastline back. Maybe by the time they had the plane under control they were already much closer to Aktau.

Waterluvian• 2 years ago

Any time something makes no sense from this region of the world, there’s often a ridiculous Soviet style decision behind it.

https://bsky.app/profile/dandrezner.bsky.social/post/3le7jr7...

ivan_gammel• 2 years ago

The entire region was the zone of active air defence and Vladikavkaz was surely not an option given the drone strike that damaged a shopping mall there. My only question here is why there were any civilian flights at the moment. They should have been diverted.

rasz3• 2 years ago

https://caliber.az/en/post/preliminary-investigation-azal-ai...

"Kill and hide. Azerbaijani officials tell local media that Russia hit flight J2-8243 with an anti-aircraft missile and then jammed electronics and _denied permission to land in three airports, steering the damaged plane into the Caspian Sea so that it would crash there and Russia’s role would never be discovered_."

imglorp• 2 years ago

Blancolirio goes into some depth on the hydraulic systems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J04wUKZUCI&pp=ygULYmxhbmNvb...

Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbaijan E190tragedy

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