Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan: could the plane have been shot down by mistake by Russian air defense?

An Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed on Wednesday December 25 in western Kazakhstan with 67 people on board, 38 of whom died according to Kazakh authorities. The circumstances of this tragic accident remain to be clarified. However, one hypothesis points to a possible accidental Russian shot.

A Russian missile launch responsible?

The images of the aircraft falling before catching fire on the ground were impressive. The cause of the crash is not yet known. But a Russian “military blogger” suggests the damage to the plane could have been caused by “an accidental strike by an air defense missile system.”

This hypothesis, relayed by Euronews which cites the international news channel AnewZ, based in Azerbaijan, is based on the presence of traces of impact on the carcass of the aircraft after the accident.

A message published on X by aeronautical consultant Xavier Tytelman also highlights the holes similar to gunshots, visible on the cabin. “The impacts on the drift are characteristic of schrapnel (artillery shell filled with metal fragments which expels its contents at the time of its explosion, Editor’s note) missiles”, explains the ex-military aviator.

A thesis which is reminiscent of the mid-flight destruction of the Malaysia Airlines plane (MH17) in 2014. The latter had at the time been shot down by separatist forces in Donbass supported by the Kremlin.

“Emergency landing”

According to Azerbaijan Airlines, the Embraer 190 was operating a flight between Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, and Grozny, capital of the Russian Caucasian Republic of Chechnya. According to the company, 62 passengers and five crew members were on board the plane which “made an emergency landing” about three kilometers from Aktau.

It crashed near the Caspian Sea port of Aktau and caught fire, according to the Kazakh Emergency Situations Ministry. However, the reasons why the pilots took the aircraft in this direction have yet to be determined. Because as the Flight Radar site explains, Aktau was not located on the initial flight route.

Also read:
VIDEO. Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashes in Kazakhstan with 67 people on board, 38 dead, announces senior Kazakh official

38 dead out of 67 passengers

“The situation is not very good, 38 dead,” Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said during a meeting, according to the Russian agency Interfax. This figure is also cited by the Kazakh pro-government site Tengrinews. For its part, the country's Ministry of Emergency Situations indicated on Telegram that “29 people were hospitalized, including three children.”

Earlier, the Azerbaijani prosecutor's office reported a different figure, saying 32 people had survived. In total on the plane, traveling “37 Azerbaijani nationals, six Kazakh nationals, three Kyrgyz citizens and 16 Russian citizens”, according to the Kazakh Ministry of Transport.