Speculation is growing that Russian forces intentionally sent a doomed Azerbaijian Airlines plane into a ‘death spiral’ using electronic jamming in a bid to cover-up firing a missile at it on Christmas Day.
Flight data recovered from the downed Flight J2-8432 suggest the flight suffered ‘possible control issues’ and ‘strong GPS jamming and spoofing’ during its approach on Grozny, according to Flightradar24.
In a final transmission in Kazakhstan, the hero pilot hauntingly told air traffic control, ‘I can’t execute, control is lost!’ before the plane crashed nose-down, killing 38.
As preliminary investigations turned up evidence that Russia may have struck the doomed jet with a surface-to-air missile, focus turns to whether Putin‘s forces interfered with the flight to cause it to crash in a bid to cover up the mistake.
Azerbaijan news outlet Caliber, citing government sources, suggested the plane was subjected to ‘air defence fire and electronic warfare systems’ that jammed its radars during the crossing of the Caspian Sea.
Caliber speculated the plane’s radars were jammed with the ‘goal’ of having the aircraft crash into the water ‘where all witnesses would perish and the aircraft would sink’.
The plane was refused permission to make an emergency landing in Russia and told instead to cross the sea in a major diversion to Kazakhstan. Russia told Kazakhstan the Azeri crew had decided to make the perilous journey.
Separate investigations by Azeri and Kazakh officials continue to probe the cause, and expect black boxes recovered from the crash site in Aktau will shed light on the tragedy within the next two weeks.
The moment a passenger plane hit the ground in a fireball in a Christmas Day crash landing
Damage to the fuselage of the plane after the horror Christmas Day crash
The flight was supposed to travel along the coast from Baku to Grozny, but diverted instead to Kazakhstan, over the Caspian Sea
Preliminary investigations suggest that a surface-to-air missile was fired at the flight from Naursky as the military engaged Ukrainian drones with air defences, per Azerbaijan government officials.
Russia uses advanced electronic jamming equipment to confuse Ukrainian drone location and communication systems and a large number of air defence systems have been deployed to shoot down the drones.
Azeri sources maintain that ‘no one claims that it was done on purpose’, and the plane may have been shot down by Russian units mistaking it for a Ukrainian asset. For its part, Russia has tried to play down speculation, urging patience while the investigation is carried out.
Kazakhstan has said it will now be carrying out an investigation into the crash, suggesting it would cooperate with Azerbaijan but not Russia.
Azerbaijan is also conducting its own investigation.
Sources briefed on the Azerbaijani investigation have said that early evidence suggests that the plane was hit by a Russian missile as it flew near Chechnya.
One told Reuters that while ‘no one claims that it was done on purpose’, Baku ‘expects the Russian side to confess to the shooting down of the Azerbaijani aircraft’.
The military had been shooting down Ukrainian drones at the time the plane sustained damage, initially attributed to a bird strike.
Recording an explosion, the plane was blocked from landing in its target destination of Grozny, with the official reason given as ‘fog’.
According to Flightradar24, it was ‘exposed to strong GPS jamming and spoofing’ while flying near the international airport.
Spoofing is a serious allegation, referring to the sending of false GPS data to an aircraft with the goal of tricking it into thinking it is somewhere else.
Publicly available ADS-B flight tracking data shows that the Azerbaijani aircraft experienced GPS jamming throughout its flight over southwest Russia, aviation security firm Osprey Flight Solutions said on Wednesday.
Struggling to control the plane with 67 people on board, the crew asked for help from several airports in Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
Instead, it was told to carry on over the Caspian Sea and towards Aktau in Kazakhstan, near where it ultimately crashed, killing 38.
Sixty seven people were on board the flight when it crashed, including 62 passengers
A Russian Pantsir-S1 self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery system
Emergency services are pictured above at the scene of the plane crash
Sources told Euronews that the missile was fired at Flight 8432 amid drone air activity above Grozny, the Chechen capital, citing a preliminary investigation.
Azeri sources claimed the plane was hit by a missile fired from a Pantsir-S air defence system from the Naursky district of Chechnya.
Now, authorities hope that the recovery of black boxes containing flight data will help explain what happened between Baku and Grozny before the crash in Aktau.
Kazakhstan’s transport prosecutor for the region where the plane came down said its investigation had not yet come to any conclusions about the crash.
Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Qanat Bozymbaev said he could neither confirm nor deny the thesis that Russian air defences downed the plane.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also said it was too early to come to conclusions about the cause of the crash when asked about the preliminary findings of Russian involvement.
It is not clear why the plane was urged to cross the Caspian Sea, having been on a straightforward journey north from Baku towards Grozny along the western coast.
It had tried to divert to Makhachkala in Russia, but aborted the approach due to ‘fog’ before diverting to Aktau.
Kazakhstan’s Minister of Transport said yesterday that a Kazakh control centre received a signal from Russia some 45 minutes before the crash to say that it was being diverted.
The Russian dispatcher said that the aircraft was experiencing a failure in its control systems.
They said that it was the crew who had decided to fly on to Aktau after receiving reports of bad weather, according to the Kazakh official.
Caliber reports that the crew was ‘redirected’ to Aktau under ‘recommendation’, against the Russian account.
Azeri government sources also told Euronews that the flight was ‘ordered to fly across the Caspian Sea towards Aktau in Kazakhstan’.
The pilots requested an emergency landing at Aktau International Airport in Kazakhstan at 09:49 AZT (04:49 GMT) and entered Kazakh airspace at 11:02 AQTT (05:02 GMT) before reappearing on radar at 11:07 AQTT (05:07 GMT).
It diverged significantly from its intended flight path, making the journey across the sea towards Aktau before making two turns near the airport.
During its third turn, at 11:28 AQTT (05:28 GMT) communication with ATC was lost. Two minutes later, the plane hit the ground, exploding and fracturing into two pieces.
The Pantsir-S1 (SA-22), self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air missile system seen displayed under the Russian national flag during the annual Army defense technology exhibition in Kubinka, 2016
A passenger on board the flight told Russia’s RT that the plane had tried to descend twice but pulled up both times.
The passenger said they heard an explosion outside the cabin on the third attempt, and that pieces of the aircraft’s shell flew off.
Caliber suggested in an editorialised news report that the plane may have been redirected towards Kazakhstan to ‘have the aircraft crash into the Caspian Sea, where all witnesses would perish and the aircraft would sink’.
It notes this is ‘merely our assumption’.
One of the Azerbaijani sources familiar with the Azerbaijani investigation into the crash told Reuters only that preliminary results showed the plane was struck by a Russian Pantsir-S air defence system, and its communications were paralysed by electronic warfare systems on the approach into Grozny.
The source said: ‘No one claims that it was done on purpose. However, taking into account the established facts, Baku expects the Russian side to confess to the shooting down of the Azerbaijani aircraft.’
Three other sources confirmed that the Azeri investigation had come to the same preliminary conclusion. Russia’s Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Thirty-eight people were killed as the plane crashed in Aktau on Christmas Day.
Those who survived were all seated in the tail portion of the plane, which detached during the crash.
The main wreckage caught fire on impact, killing everyone in the front.
Russia and Azerbaijan enjoy bilateral ties, with Azerbaijan becoming an essential partner for trade and acting as a corridor to Iran amid the war in Ukraine.
However, the relationship is complicated. Failure to take responsibility would inflame underlying tensions, with Russia’s influence over Azerbaijan waning in recent years.