Mystery and speculation surround cause of deadly Kazakhstan plane crash

An Azerbaijani airliner that crashed on Christmas Day with 67 people on board had flown hundreds of kilometres off its scheduled route from Azerbaijan to Russia to crash on the opposite shore of the Caspian Sea, setting off speculation it may have been shot down.

The Embraer 190 plane was en route from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus when it was diverted and attempted an emergency landing three kilometres from Aktau, killing 38 people and leaving 29 survivors.

Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbaev disclosed the figures while meeting with Azerbaijani officials on Thursday, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

Speaking at a news conference, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that it was too soon to speculate on the reasons behind the crash but said that the weather had forced the plane to change from its planned course.

“The information provided to me is that the plane changed its course between Baku and Grozny due to worsening weather conditions and headed to Aktau airport, where it crashed upon landing,” he said.

Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said that preliminary information showed that the pilots diverted to Aktau after a bird strike led to an emergency on board. But an aviation expert suggested that cause seemed unlikely.

Part of the plane smoulders after the crash.Credit: AP

A collision with birds typically results in the plane landing in the nearest available field, Richard Aboulafia, an analyst at consultancy AeroDynamic Advisory, told Reuters. “You can lose control of the plane, but you don’t fly wildly off course as a consequence.”

Kazakhstan’s main transport prosecutor, Timur Suleimenov, told a briefing in the country’s capital, Astana, that the plane’s black box, which contains flight data to help determine the cause of a crash, had been found, Interfax reported.

The London Telegraph reported that Russian military bloggers suggested the plane, which crashed nearby, could have been shot down by Russia after being mistaken for a Ukrainian drone. They suggested holes in the fuselage could have been made by shrapnel from air-defence missiles.

Flight-tracking data from Flightradar24.com showed the aircraft making what appeared to be a figure of eight once nearing the airport in Aktau, its altitude moving up and down substantially over the last minutes of the flight before hitting the ground.

What was left of the Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 on the ground near the airport of Aktau.Credit: AP

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.

According to Kazakh officials, those aboard the plane included 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhs and three Kyrgyzstan nationals. Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general’s office previously said that 32 of the 67 people on board had survived the crash but told journalists that the number wasn’t final.

The Associated Press could not immediately reconcile the difference between the numbers of survivors given by Kazakhstan and Azerbaijani officials.

Mobile phone footage appeared to show the aircraft making a steep descent into Aktau before smashing into the ground in a fireball. Other footage showed part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings and the rest of the aircraft lying upside down in the grass. The footage corresponded to the plane’s colours and its registration number.

Some of the videos posted on social media showed survivors dragging fellow passengers away from the wreckage.

Azerbaijan Airlines said it would keep members of the public updated and changed its social media banners to solid black. It also said that it would suspend flights between Baku and Grozny, as well as between Baku and the city of Makhachkala in Russia’s North Caucasus until its investigation into the crash has been concluded.

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

Aliyev, who was travelling to Russia, returned to Azerbaijan on hearing news of the crash, the president’s press service said. He was due to attend an informal meeting of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a bloc of former Soviet countries founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in St. Petersburg.

Aliyev expressed his condolences to the families of the victims in a statement 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.

He also signed a decree declaring December 26 a day of mourning in Azerbaijan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to Aliyev on the phone and expressed his condolences, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Speaking in St Petersburg, Putin said Russia’s Emergency Ministry had sent a plane with equipment and medical workers to Kazakhstan to assist.

The wreckage of Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 lies on the ground near the airport of Aktau, Kazakhstan.Credit: AP

Kazakhstani, Azerbaijani and Russian authorities said they were investigating the crash, while manufacturer Embraer said it was “ready to assist all relevant authorities.”

Flight J2-8243 was originally heading to an area in Chechnya said to have been hit by Ukraine earlier this month. The nearest Russian airport on the plane’s flight path was closed on Wednesday morning.

AP, Reuters

Dozens are believed to have died in the crash. Credit: AP

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