Did Russia shoot down Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243?
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Centre for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine announced that: “This morning, an Embraer 190 aircraft of the Azerbaijani airline flying from Baku to Grozny was shot down by a Russian air defense system. Russia was supposed to close the airspace over Grozny, but did not do so. The plane was damaged by the Russians and was sent to Kazakhstan instead of being urgently landed in Grozny and saving lives.”
Grozny has been the target of a number of retaliatory Ukrainian drone attacks in recent weeks, and it was flight J2-8243’s misfortune to arrive at Grozny shortly after such an attack. It seems that Russian air defences mistook the Embraer for a Ukrainian drone, and engaged it with unidentified systems.
Surviving passengers said that on the third attempt to land in Grozny, there were some explosions outside the aircraft and that the flight was then diverted across the Caspian to Aktau in Kazakhstan.
Passenger video from inside the aircraft showed signs of shrapnel damage, and a woman passenger suffered a leg wound.
As the aircraft crossed the Caspian, the crew began to encounter control problems – which may have been the result of hydraulic failure. There seems to be some evidence to support the theory that by the time the aircraft was approaching Aktau, the crew were controlling the aircraft largely by using engine power and trimmers, and that they had been flying for more than 50 minutes with control systems that had failed, struggling to maintain attitude and heading. There are some parallels with the non-fatal loss of an Air Astana E190 on 11 November, 2018 which suffered control issues after departing from Lisbon’s Alverca Air Base, and had to divert to Beja.
Tragically, the aircraft crashed only a few miles short of Aktau’s runway.
