The cause of the crash is being investigated

Azerbaijan’s Emergency Situations Ministry and Flight Radar24 Investigated the Aktau crash on Wednesday (April 28th, 2009)

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who had been traveling to St Petersburg, returned to Azerbaijan on hearing news of the crash, the president’s press service said. Aliyev was to attend an informal meeting of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Aliyev paid his respects to the families on social media. “It is with deep sadness that I express my condolences to the families of the victims and wish a speedy recovery to those injured,” he wrote.

Both Kazakhstani and Azerbaijani authorities were investigating the crash. The company is ready to assist all relevant authorities, according to the statement.

Azerbaijan’s state news agency, Azertac, said that an official delegation consisting of Azerbaijan’s emergency situations minister, the country’s deputy general prosecutor, and the vice president of Azerbaijan Airlines had been dispatched to Aktau to conduct an “on-site investigation”.

Embraer did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Wednesday morning. In a statement, Azerbaijan Airlines said it would keep members of the public updated and changed its social media banners to solid black.

FlightRadar24 separately said in an online post that the aircraft had faced “strong GPS jamming” which ” made the aircraft transmit bad ADS-B data”, referring to the information that allows flight-tracking websites to follow planes in flight. Russia has been blamed in the past for jamming GPS transmissions in the wider region.

Mobile phone footage on the internet appeared to show the aircraft hitting the ground in a fireball after a steep descent. Other footage showed part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings and the rest of the aircraft, lying upside in the grass. The footage corresponded to the plane’s colors and its registration number.

TheRosaviatsia stated that the pilot diverted to Aktau due to an emergency situation on board after a bird strike.

According to Kazakh officials, those aboard the plane included 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhs and three Kyrgyzstan nationals. Nine Russian survivors were flown to Moscow by Russia’s Emergencies Ministry.

Kazakhstan’s Emergency Ministry initially said 25 people survived the crash, later revising that number to 27, 28, and then 29 as the search and rescue operation continued at the site of the crash, bringing the supposed death toll down.

According to a preliminary assessment, the two pilots died in the crash, according to medical workers quoted by Interfax.

The emergency ministry said in a Telegram statement that there were five crew on the plane. The ministry has told RIA Novosti that at least 29 have been hospitalized.

Investigating the cause of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash: a Russian air defense system or a surface-to-air missile?

Azerbaijan on Thursday observed a nationwide day of mourning for the victims of the plane crash that killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured as speculation mounted about a possible cause of the disaster, with some experts saying that the airliner was damaged by Russian air defense fire.

The flight was diverted to Grozny, Russia, where it crashed while attempting to land in Aktau, in the eastern part of the country.

As the official crash investigation started, theories abounded about a possible cause, with some experts alleging that holes seen in the plane’s tail section possibly indicate that it could have come under fire from Russian air defense systems fending off a Ukrainian drone attack.

Caliber reported that a Russian air defense system had fired upon the airliner as it was approaching Grozny. Despite the appearance of a drone attack in the area, Russian authorities didn’t close the airport. The head of Chechnya’s Security Council said Wednesday that air defenses downed drones attacking the region.

National flags across the country were lowered and the country observed a moment of silence.

It was too soon to speculate about what caused the crash, but the plane had to change course due to the weather, according to President Aliyev.

The analysis of the pictures of the crashed plane suggest that it was most likely hit by a surface-to-air missile, or SAM, as stated by Mark Schuetz of the OPS Group.

“Much more to investigate, but at high level we’d put the probability of it being a SAM attack on the aircraft at being well into the 90-99% bracket,” he said.

A United Kingdom based aviation security firm warned its clients that the Azeri Airlines flight was most likely shot down by a Russian military air-defense system. Osprey provides analysis for carriers still flying into Russia after Western airlines halted their flights during the war.

Source: Investigation begins into the cause of the Azerbaijan Airlines crash

Comment on “It’s a tragedy to know what happened, or why we should have done something” by M. Nicholson and M. Ashimbayev

Nicholson wrote online that the incident was a stark reminder of why they do what they do. It is sad to know that lives could have been avoided as a result of our efforts.

Kazakhstan’s parliamentary Speaker Maulen Ashimbayev also warned against rushing to conclusions based on pictures of the plane’s fragments, describing the allegations of air defense fire as unfounded and “unethical.”

Other officials in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have similarly avoided comment on a possible cause of the crash, saying it will be up to investigators to determine it.