r/worldnews • u/DomesticErrorist22 • 1d ago

Preliminary investigation confirms Russian missile caused Azerbaijan Airlines crash Russia/Ukraine

https://www.euronews.com/2024/12/26/exclusive-preliminary-investigation-confirms-russian-missile-over-grozny-caused-aktau-cras
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u/DomesticErrorist22 1d ago edited 1d ago

From the article:

Azerbaijani government sources have exclusively confirmed to Euronews on Thursday that a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Aktau on Wednesday.

According to the sources, the missile was fired at Flight 8432 during drone air activity above Grozny, and the shrapnel hit the passengers and cabin crew as it exploded next to the aircraft mid-flight.

Government sources have told Euronews that the damaged aircraft was not allowed to land at any Russian airports despite the pilots’ requests for an emergency landing, and it was ordered to fly across the Caspian Sea towards Aktau in Kazakhstan.

According to data, the plane’s GPS navigation systems were jammed throughout the flight path above the sea.

The missile was fired from a Pantsir-S air defence system, Baku-based international outlet AnewZ reported, citing Azerbaijani government sources.

According to Russian sources, at the time the Azerbaijan Airlines flight was passing over the territory of Chechnya, Russian air defence forces were actively attempting to shoot down Ukrainian UAVs.

The head of the Security Council of the Chechen Republic, Khamzat Kadyrov, confirmed that a drone attack on Grozny took place on Wednesday morning, noting that there were no casualties or damage.

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u/suddenly-scrooge 1d ago

while it started as gross negligence, the russians definitely tried to murder those people to destroy the evidence in the caspian sea

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u/StanleyCubone 1d ago

Homelander shit

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u/SupaFlyslammajammazz 1d ago

In all fairness Homelander did have a point with the difficulty in saving everyone from that plane.

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u/pinkjello 1d ago

Genuine question, if they were trying to destroy the evidence, why didn’t they just let them land in a Russian airport? Then they could’ve refused to allow the release/investigation of the airplane. Instead, the plane landed elsewhere, and investigators have free rein. Maybe they were betting the plane wouldn’t make it to another country’s soil?

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u/Longjumping-Boot1886 1d ago

Caspian Sea is deep enough to delay investigation for a years. Some parts of the plane could be "missed".

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u/Juderampe 1d ago

Of course they did. Its a bombed airplane thats barely airworthy. They hoped it would down in the Caspian sea

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u/iron_and_carbon 1d ago

I suspect it was more of the standard ‘make this someone else’s problem’ attitude that pervades Russian bureaucracy. Rather than organising a competent coverup everyone scrambled to make the plane not their problem and hopefully go away by falling into the sea

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u/igotbanneddd 10h ago

As someone who studied a russian serial killer who was on the loose for over 20 years for a school project, I agree with your statement.

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u/2bdb2 1d ago

Genuine question, if they were trying to destroy the evidence, why didn’t they just let them land in a Russian airport?

Pretty much this.

The idea that somebody would have tried to cover this up by crashing it into water in someone else's territory is ridiculous when you consider the vast no-expenses-spared international search for mh370 with a much larger search area in much deeper water.

If we assume human error rather than malice, then it was probably something like this

  • Drone attack was detected, so they closed the airspace and diverted all aircraft.

  • Signal jamming was turned on to jam drones, which messed with transponders, gps, and potentially ATC comms.

  • Flight went into the wrong airspace by mistake (possibly due to gps jamming, ATC mistakes, and general confusion).

  • Poorly trained conscripts with missiles see a "drone" where they're told it's not supposed to be, hit the big red button.

  • The flight initially reported a birdstrike, but was still in the air and able to fly.

  • ATC triaged this and considered it safer to divert a suspected birdstrike away from an active military operation in now-closed airspace.

  • At this point, nobody realized the "bird strike" was actually an AA missile.

This part likely happened in the space of minutes. Nobody with any authority to cover anything up had time to be alerted about it, figure out what happened, and make a plan.

(And anybody with any competence handling such a situation is stationed in Ukraine).

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u/Orontion 21h ago

This.

Russia's number one problem is not some evil mastermind who orchestrates cunning plans. It is vast, deep and all-around stupidity at all levels.

Even February 24-th began out of stupid intelligence, who lied to stupid president, who stupididly thought it would be a good idea to increase his election ratings before presidental elections in 2024 with swift and smooth 3-day special operation.

But stupidity sometimes is much worse than sentient evil...

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u/Portland-to-Vt 1d ago

*is invading Ukraine. Not stationed but invading and killing, never use a passive tone when describing the killing of civilians.

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u/2bdb2 23h ago

is invading Ukraine. Not stationed but invading and killing, never use a passive tone when describing the killing of civilians.

I considered this self evident enough already that I didn't need to mansplain it.

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u/Unlikely_Arugula190 1d ago

Tried? Succeeded.

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u/SeargD 1d ago

They succeded in the murder but failed to hide the evidence.

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u/KoolAidManOfPiss 1d ago

Like half the people survived, there were even people who walked away from the crash. One dude has a video from inside right before it goes down, you can see bullet holes thru parts of the plane and one of the emergency life jackets.

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u/Phantom30 1d ago

No they failed at the cover up, the pilots managed to make it across the sea and crashed on land where evidence could easily be gathered. 

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u/bandures 1d ago

A typical redditor playing 5D chess. All their alternatives in Russia had bad visibility conditions, so it was the pilot's decision to divert to Aktau.

From Avherald: "J2-8243 from Baku (Azerbaijan) to Grozny (Russia) with 62 passengers and 5 crew, had diverted from Grozny to Aktau (Kazakhstan) due to weather, subsequently attempted to divert to Makhachkala (Russia) but aborted the approach to Makhachkala due to fog before diverting to Aktau".

You can check the reported METAR there, which obviously states the same.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/harrisarah 1d ago

Yeah it's all about you being right

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u/Upstairs-Boring 1d ago

Hey everyone, I also guessed the most popular theory of why they crashed that every comment on reddit was also saying from the start. Look how smart I am!

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u/Scavenged1312Item 1d ago edited 1d ago

The sun came back, like I knew it would! After those hours of darkness, it returned! I'm a prophet! /s

I would've replied to them directly, but they deleted their comment.

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u/LucidMarshmellow 1d ago edited 1d ago

I'm not surprised that my assumption turned out to be 100% correct.

Well, you're just all kinds of special, aren't ya?

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u/Musa_Ali 18h ago

AFAIK, the Azerbaijan Airlines themselves had Aktau in the list of recommended airports (in case of emergencies).

So there might be not as much of conspiracy there. It was just convenient, i.e. no surroundings mountains, flat steppe, presence of Azerbaijan Airlines office etc.