Plane crash in Aktau — Russian air defense may be the cause
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On Wednesday, December 25, an Embraer 190 passenger plane of Azerbaijan Airlines crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan. It killed 38 people. Initially, the airline claimed that the cause of the crash was a collision with birds, but there are versions that the crash was caused by a Russian anti-aircraft missile system.
This was reported in an article by The Wall Street Journal and Kazakh media.
The aircraft may have had a GPS interruption
According to unconfirmed reports, a plane flying from Baku to Grozny was diverted to Aktau due to fog in Grozny, according to the official version.
At the same time, the media speculated about other reasons for the closure of the airport in Grozny, including the introduction of the "Carpet" plan, which prohibits the reception of aircraft, and a possible drone attack on Chechnya. Flightradar24 provided data that the plane was under the influence of GPS during the flight, which could have affected navigation.
Meanwhile, Osprey Flight Solutions, analyzing video footage and damage to the plane, said it was likely shot down by a Russian military air defense system.
The company's chief intelligence officer, Matt Barry, noted that the damage to the tail section of the plane did not correspond to a collision with a flock of birds, as Azerbaijan Airlines had suggested.
Who was flying the plane
According to official data, the Embraer 190 was manufactured in 2013 and passed its last technical inspection in October 2024, after which it flew 671 hours. The aircraft's captain, Igor Kshnyakin, had more than 15,000 flight hours, including 11,200 as a captain.
Twenty-five minutes before the scheduled landing in Grozny, the crew reported the need for an emergency landing in Aktau. Half an hour later, the plane crashed in a field near the airport. Russian air defense has recently been active in the region where the incident occurred due to attacks by Ukrainian drones. It is noteworthy that a few hours before the crash, Russia claimed to have shot down a drone near Vladikavkaz.
The situation has raised serious concerns about the safety of civil aviation in the region. Osprey warned of increased flight risks in the area, and Azerbaijan Airlines temporarily suspended flights to Grozny and Makhachkala. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are conducting a joint investigation to determine the exact causes of the tragedy.
Survivors of the plane crash told Azerbaijani Emergency Situations Minister Kamaleddin Heydarov that they heard explosions behind the left window that damaged the plane's skin.
Some soldiers, who anonymously run Telegram channels, said that the Chechens tried to hide the fact that the plane was shot down.
"And now I'll tell you how it really happened. The Chechens fired air defense at a civilian Azerbaijani plane. They immediately realized what they had done. A ban on landing in Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan was issued. The pilots turned the plane around and headed to Aktau, the nearest airport across the Caspian Sea. The plan was for the plane to crash into the sea, making it possible to hide the damage caused by the air defense system. If the Russian pilots, heroes as they are, hadn’t managed to cross the sea, the plan would have worked, and we would never have learned the truth. Birds brought down the plane, and so on. And there would have been no one to refute it," one of the servicemen stated.
An investigation and examination of the plane's wreckage is currently underway.
As a reminder, the head of the Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD), Andrii Kovalenko, said that Russia could have shot down the plane with a surface-to-air missile system.
The plane was carrying citizens of different countries. Representatives of the airline claimed that the crash was caused by a collision with birds.
Videos from the plane's cabin moments before the crash were also posted online.
