What we know about the Azerbaijan Airlines crash | Global News Avenue

On December 25, an Azerbaijan Airlines flight scheduled to land in Russia crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people.

The exact circumstances of the crash are unclear, but limited evidence so far suggests the plane may have been damaged by a missile fired by a Russian air defense system while trying to land in Chechnya.

Here’s what we know about flight J2-8243.

On Christmas morning, flight J2-8243 took off from Baku Airport, the capital of Azerbaijan. The plan is to land in Grozny, the capital of Russia’s Chechnya region.

There were 67 passengers on board, most of them Azerbaijani nationals, but also passengers from Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

The aircraft was an Embraer 190, operated by Azerbaijan Airlines.

Surviving passengers said the plane entered thick fog as it approached Grozny.

They described two attempts by the pilot to land the aircraft under such conditions.

On the third try, survivors said they felt a series of explosions from the plane.

“The third time, something exploded… and some of the skin of the plane was blown off,” one person told Russian television.

Zulfuqar Asadov, a flight attendant on the plane, told local media that the impact of the strike had “caused internal panic.”

“We were trying to calm (the passengers) down and get them to sit down. That’s when another strike happened and I hurt my arm,” he said.

Video taken by a passenger during the flight showed oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling.

Azerbaijan’s Transport Minister Rashad Nabiyev said: “All (survivors) without exception said that they heard three explosions when the plane flew over Grozny.”

He said the plane suffered “external interference” while trying to land and suffered damage both internally and externally.

Ukraine has been targeting Chechnya and other parts of Russia’s Caucasus region with drones in recent weeks.

After the crash, authorities in Moscow said such attacks had triggered a deal to close the airspace over Grozny.

According to local officials, a drone was shot down by air defense forces over a shopping mall in Vladikavkaz, near North Ossetia, that morning.

It is unclear whether the closed-airspace agreement, known as “Project Carpet,” was enacted before or while flight J2-8243 was in Russian airspace.

After the incident over Grozny, the plane turned eastward about 450 kilometers (280 miles) toward Aktau Airport in Kazakhstan.

It’s unclear why it was rerouted over the Caspian Sea – a much longer flight than several other options.

Russian aviation authorities claimed that the pilots of the plane “were offered other airports” but chose Aktau.

Data released by flight tracking website Flight Radar showed the plane zigzagged up and down as it approached Aktau before turning and crashing just a few kilometers from the airport.

Video near the scene showed the plane descending rapidly in the air before crashing to the ground and sliding hundreds of meters in a fireball.

38 people died and 29 survived, some seriously injured. Notably, some survivors were seen walking and crawling through the wreckage.

Although the pilot died in the crash, they managed to land part of the plane, thus saving lives.

Most survivors are believed to have been in the back of the vehicle.

Initial reports in Russian media said the plane collided with a flock of birds.

However, Azerbaijani aviation experts and others believe the plane’s global positioning system was affected by electronic interference and then damaged by shrapnel from an exploding Russian anti-aircraft missile.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Friday that the United States had “preliminary indications” that Russia was responsible, but declined further comment.

The Azerbaijani government has so far avoided directly blaming Russia, but Azerbaijani government sources told Reuters that investigations have determined that the weapon fired from the plane was a Russian Pantsir-S air defense system.

The Kremlin has so far refused to comment on reports that the plane was hit by Russian weapons.

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “The investigation is ongoing and we do not consider ourselves competent to make any assessment until the investigation reaches its conclusion.”

The plane’s flight recorders have been found and contain data that could help determine the cause of the crash.

Reports in Baku showed that both Russia and Kazakhstan proposed that the Russian-led regional group the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) establish a commission to investigate the crash, but Azerbaijan instead called for an international investigation.

Azerbaijan Airlines and several other airlines have suspended flights to some Russian cities in response to the crash.