An Azerbaijan Airlines crashed Wednesday at the Aqtau Airport in Aktau, Kazakhstan; 28 of the 67 passengers and crew aboard are known to have survived; the circumstances of the crash indicate the aircraft suffered fatal damage as the result of a Russian surface-to-air missile.
Azerbaijan Airlines JS-8243 left Baku International Airport at 7:55 local time en route to Grozny Airport in Russia’s Chechen Republic. The flight lasted just over an hour and was to arrive at 8:03 local time.
As the aircraft approached Grozny, its navigation was “exposed to strong GPS jamming and spoofing.” Due to fog in Grozny, the plane was diverted to Makhachkala’s Uytash Airport in Dagestan, Russia, which is 95 miles east of Grozny.
Grozny was under drone attack on Wednesday as JS-8243 approached.
GPS spoofing and jamming have been used by the Russians before, and it would be a logical part of any defense against long-range drone attack; see Is Russia’s Baltic GPS Jamming Harassment or a Military Test Bed?
Sometime after the plane was diverted to Uytash Airport, it was again diverted to Aqtau Airport. No reason was given, but the same ground fog that scrubbed the Grozny landing was probably in effect at Uytash Airport.
Shortly after the aircraft crossed the coast of the Caspian Sea, the crew reported a heavy impact on the fuselage. That report was quickly followed by the aircraft signaling an emergency by sending a 7700 transponder code and requesting permission for an emergency landing because of failure of control systems. This is the radar plot and it does look like something is wrong.
As the plane arrived at Aqtau Airport, it was caught on video.
Initially, the Russian equivalent of the FAA floated the story that the aircraft was the victim of a birdstrike. The wreckage and survivor testimony quickly shot that story down.
The fuselage skin showed puncture damage on the port side and exit damage on the starboard side with an upward angle.
The Russian fallback position became an engine explosion that led to a loss of control. But as you can see on the crash video, both engines appear perfectly intact.
Because some passengers survived, we have testimony and video from inside the aircraft.
Now the Russians have moved on to two alternative theories. First, Flight JS-8243 was hit by a Ukrainian drone. This seems unlikely due to the location (over the Caspian Sea) and the speed and altitude differential between JS-8243 and what we know about long-range Ukrainian drones. The second is a play on the “she was wearing her skirt too damned short” excuse for the invasion of Ukraine. In this one, yes, Russia shot down JS-8243, but it was Ukraine’s fault because it was attacking a Russian airport.
Don’t look for a detailed investigation of this incident.
