Hours after the Azerbaijan Airlines plane from Baku to Russia's Grozny crashed in Kazakhstan, mystery surrounds the flight's activity before the disaster and why it disappeared from tracking before being spotted across the Caspian Sea, miles off its scheduled route.
The Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 Embraer 190 jet was flying to Grozny, the capital of the Chechnya region in southern Russia, was forced to make an emergency landing around 3 kilometres from Aktau in Kazakhstan. Azerbaijan claims this was due to a bird hit.
But, there is still no explanation for why the plane, the scheduled route of which was northwards, along the shores of the Caspian Sea, flew east over to Aktau, which is on the opposite shore of the Caspian Sea from Azerbaijan and Russia.
✈️🛠️ Fuselage shows damage resembling air defense fragments or striking elements.
— Updates (@sirfupdate_) December 25, 2024
👂 A survivor reports hearing an explosion outside before the crash.
🐦 Preliminary Cause: Rosaviatsia suggests a bird collision as the likely reason.#PlaneCrash #KazakhstanPlaneCrash https://t.co/hgffGdu9FM pic.twitter.com/YmnNp4dDA8
Russian news agencies said the plane had been rerouted due to fog in Grozny. However, data from FlightRadar 24 also shows the plane flying over the republic of Dagestan along the Caspian Sea coast. It disappears from the radar only to show up an hour later off course. The plane was then spotted flying low above the water near western Kazakhstan before crashing.
Flight #J28243 that crashed near Aktau Airport in Kazakhstan is an Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer ERJ-190 with registration 4K-AZ65.#J28243 took off from Baku at 03:55 UTC time and was flying to Grozny. The aircraft was exposed to strong GPS jamming which made the aircraft… pic.twitter.com/rM1Q0jmMPt
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) December 25, 2024
A post on X by Flightradar24 read: "The aircraft was exposed to strong GPS jamming which made the aircraft transmit bad ADS-B data. At 04:40 UTC we lost the ADS-B signal. At 06:07 UTC we picked up the ADS-B signal again before it crashed at 06:28 UTC."
This has triggered speculations that the flight was affected by a possible drone attack. There are reports that the crash came shortly after drone strikes hit southern Russia, forcing the authorities to shut airports in the area. Authorities in two Russian regions adjacent to the flight's destination in Chechnya - Ingushetia and North Ossetia - reported drone strikes on Wednesday morning. An official at Makhachkala airport in Russia on the east coast of the Caspian told Reuters that the airport closest to where the flight disappeared from tracking had been closed for several hours on Wednesday morning.
Meanwhile, videos doing rounds on social media showed holes in the jet's tailfin. This has added to rumours that the plane could have been targeted by air defence systems as it approached Grozny. A report on RT News also quoted a surviving passenger who said that the pilot tried landing the plane in Grozny three times before "something exploded."
Neither Russian nor Azerbaijani officials have explained the reason for the flight going off route. However, authorities in Kazakhstan said a government commission had been set up to probe the accident.
