Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan ‘doesn’t look like’ bird collision, as Russia suggested, experts say Blogging Sole

Speculation grew on Friday that the Russian military may have played a role in the affair. Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash who killed 38 people and injured 29 survivors in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, experts say cast doubt on Moscow’s suggestion that a bird strike was to blame.

Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243, an Embraer 190 aircraft, was flying from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to the city of Grozny in Russia’s North Caucasus region on Wednesday when it was diverted for reasons that remain unclear two days later. At some point during the flight, the aircraft’s GPS tracking was reportedly jammed, leading to significant deviations in the flight path.

The plane crashed while trying to reach another airport in Aktau, western Kazakhstan, after crossing the Caspian Sea to the east. It crashed and burst into a ball of fire only about three kilometers from Aktau airport.

Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia all opened an investigation into the causes of the accident, but it was Russia that faced the most pointed questions two days later. The Kremlin has urged people not to jump to conclusions, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who has forged closer ties between his country and Russia during his two decades in power, also said he was too early to speculate.

“The information provided to me is that the plane changed course between Baku and Grozny due to deteriorating weather conditions and headed towards Aktau airport, where it crashed at landing,” he said, while Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, suggested a bird strike. theory.

But a U.S. official told CBS News there were preliminary indications that a Russian anti-aircraft system may have struck the plane in a region where Ukrainian and Russian forces have been exchanging drone and rocket fire from month. The official, who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity, said that if true, it would further highlight Russia’s recklessness in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Independent aviation experts have also cast doubt on the bird strike theory and pointed to damage seen on the plane’s fuselage as evidence of a more nefarious possible explanation.

“It certainly doesn’t look like a flock of birds,” said CBS News aviation safety analyst Robert Sumwalt, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.

“Birds do not fly at the altitude at which the initial damage occurred on this aircraft,” Sumwalt added.

Instead, the damage bears the mark of shrapnel from an airborne weapon, and British military veteran and security analyst Justin Crump told CBS News’ sister network, BBC News, that “the “The most likely hypothesis is that it was hit by an air defense missile – almost certainly.” Russian.”

Azerbaijan Airlines, in a statement reported Friday by international news agencies, said the plane suffered “external physical and technical interference” during its flight, without offering further information.

Some crash survivors reported hearing an explosion before the crash.

“Ukrainian drones were active at the time, and that’s commensurate with anything we’ve seen in pilot communication with air traffic control,” Crump told the BBC.

Ukraine has relied heavily on explosive drones to strike Russian military and infrastructure targets inside the much larger neighboring country’s western territory over the past year, and Russia often shoots down these weapons with its air defense systems.

For many observers, the circumstances of the Azerbaijan Airlines crash and the damage caused to the plane wreckage are reminiscent of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crash in 2014. This airliner was hit by a missile launched by Russian-backed forces over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

Among those desperate for answers in Kazakhstan’s latest disaster are crash survivors, including a man who said from a hospital bed that he was sitting next to his wife on the plane when the The plane crashed.

“I haven’t seen my wife since,” he said.

Investigators recovered the two “black boxes” – flight data and cockpit voice recorders – from the crash site. Experts from Brazil, where the plane was built, were expected to arrive in Kazakhstan on Friday to help retrieve and analyze the information collected.

As formal investigations intensified, the Ukrainian government demanded on Friday that Russia be held responsible for the accident, as Azerbaijan Airlines reportedly halted scheduled services to seven Russian cities.