Russian civil aviation officials say pilots on Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 were making an emergency landing after a bird strike when their Embraer E190 crashed on Christmas Day less than two miles from the airport in Aktau, Kazakhstan, killing 38 of 67 passengers.
There’s growing speculation, however, that the jetliner was accidentally shot down by Russian air defenses after it was misidentified as a Ukrainian missile or drone.
The flight was en route from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Grozny, the capital of Russia’s Chechnya. Azerbaijan Airlines said the 55-minute flight north along the west side of the Caspian Sea was diverted because of heavy fog to make an emergency landing in Aktau, on the east shore of the sea in Kazakhstan.
Both Kazakhstani and Azerbaijani authorities were investigating the crash, reported Kazakhstan news agency Kazinform and Azerbaijan’s state news agency Azertac.
Embraer said in a statement that the Brazilian manufacturer is “ready to assist all relevant authorities.”
According to Kazakhstan’s Emergency Ministry, 38 passengers, including both pilots, were killed on impact and 29, including two children, are hospitalized; 11 in serious but stable condition.
An Azerbaijani delegation consisting of Azerbaijan’s emergency situations minister, deputy general prosecutor, and the vice president of Azerbaijan Airlines had been dispatched to Aktau to conduct an “on-site investigation,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s office announced.
Aliyev was in St. Petersburg attending a Commonwealth of Independent States meeting, but returned to Azerbaijan after learning of the crash.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with Aliyev on the phone to express condolences.
According to flight tracking services such as Flightware and FlightRadar24.com, the E190 made what appears to be a figure-eight as it approached Aktau, climbing and descending in altitude substantially over the last minutes of the flight before impacting the ground.
Also surfacing on the internet is speculation the civilian airliner may have been accidentally shot down by Russian air defenses on high alert after repeated Ukrainian drone attacks on Grozny.
A drone attack forced closure of the nearest fog-free airport on the plane’s flight path from Baku to Grozny, prompting it fly to the other side of the Caspian Sea to make an attempted emergency landing at Aktau, multiple sources confirm.
Unconfirmed reports from Azerbaijan-based news channel AnewZ, published in Euronews and elsewhere, say while attempting the land a third time in foggy Grozny, surviving passengers heard a “bang on board” followed by what appeared to be shrapnel striking the aircraft, slicing into its fuselage.
Various experts have preliminarily noted after viewing news footage at the crash site that wreckage appears caused by antiaircraft fire.
Ukraine’s Centre for Strategic Communication and Information Security denied Ukrainian drones were responsible, but agreed, “Damage consistent with anti-aircraft fire on the fuselage has appeared in footage of today’s wreckage.”
