Disaster Dozens killed as passenger plane crashes in Kazakhstan - No it wasn't a Boeing.

BBC LINK // ARCHIVE


Dozens of people have died after a passenger plane crashed with 67 people on board in Kazakhstan, local officials say.

Authorities in Azerbaijan, where the flight originated, say there were at least 30 survivors.

Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 caught fire as it attempted to make an emergency landing near the Kazakh city of Aktau.

The plane was en route to Grozny in Russia but it was diverted due to fog, the airline told the BBC.

Video verified by Reuters news agency shows the plane heading towards the ground at high speed, with its landing gear down.

Seconds after it seems to attempt to land, a huge fireball erupts.

The airline said the plane "made an emergency landing" about 3km (1.9 miles) from Aktau.

It took off from the Azerbaijani capital Baku at 03:55 GMT on Wednesday, and crashed around 06:28, data from flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed.

There were 62 passengers and 5 crew members on board the Embraer 190 aircraft, the transport ministry said.

Those on board were mostly Azerbaijani nationals, but there were also some passengers from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Out of the 25 known survivors, 22 were taken to hospital, the emergency ministry said.

Unverified video footage showed emergency services pulling people out of the wreckage and survivors crawling out.

Both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have launched investigations into the cause of the accident. Embraer told the BBC it was "ready to assist all relevant authorities".

The BBC has contacted Azerbaijan Airlines for comment.

The aircraft involved was an Embraer E190, the Brazilian company is a smaller rival to Boeing and Airbus, it traditionally has a strong safety record.

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

'The damage in this plane's tail seems consistent with Russian missiles'

I am quoting you because your post is a good launching point for my own questions.

More or less likely than the tail getting struck by rocks and debris from the rest of the plane as it smashed into the ground?

I am genuinely asking anyone that may know. Sure it looks like a blast pattern... but is it? What if a chunk of dirt full of rocks got flung and broke apart before hitting the body? That seems way more likely than anything else I have heard.

 

[Kiska]

Cheap too. Hope you like flying through Richmond VA though. Probably why they are cheap. Can't imagine the fees for using Richmond as a hub are very high. But there is no cheaper way to go from the West Coast to the East.

luckily that doesn't apply to me since I've never been nor want to go to the US mainland east coast

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

luckily that doesn't apply to me since I've never been nor want to go to the US mainland east coast

Please keep it that way and tell your friends and family to do the same.

 

[whatever I feel like]

I am quoting you because your post is a good launching point for my own questions.

More or less likely than the tail getting struck by rocks and debris from the rest of the plane as it smashed into the ground?

I am genuinely asking anyone that may know. Sure it looks like a blast pattern... but is it? What if a chunk of dirt full of rocks got flung and broke apart before hitting the body? That seems way more likely than anything else I have heard.

What I heard was that engine parts (you know, if it exploded in flight,) or ground impact stuff would have both punctured the hull but also had smaller bits just dent it. That these are only punctures with no dents sounds more like an explosion took place near it.

But I am no ballistics expert and am not sold on that yet.

 

[Standardized Profile]

Is all of the bird strike talk just politisperging in response to accusations against russia?

The pilots initially reported a bird strike because they didn't know what had happened. The Russians ran with that explanation, but it didn't survive first contact with the pictures and videos. The alternative was "a Ukrainian UAV did it," but that didn't really catch on either.

What if a chunk of dirt full of rocks got flung and broke apart before hitting the body?

According to a bunch of aviation forums I've been lurking in, the damage to the tail is consistent with the loss of hydraulics, which is why the plane couldn't fly right and smacked into the ground. The damage explains the crash, the crash doesn't explain the damage. Also, passengers took pictures of damage to plane while it was still in the air. In this video, you can see from inside the cabin the same left-to-right penetration seen in the exterior pictures of the tail. The person in the black-and-white shoes made it to the ground and was dragged away from the crash. In this video, you can see damage to a fairing on the left wing while the plane is in flight. Whatever put the holes in the cabin and broke the fairing almost certainly caused much of the damage to the tail.

Euronews [archive] reporting it was Russian air defense:

Azerbaijani government sources have exclusively confirmed to Euronews on Thursday that a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Aktau on Wednesday.

According to the sources, the missile was fired at Flight 8432 during drone air activity above Grozny, and the shrapnel hit the passengers and cabin crew as it exploded next to the aircraft mid-flight.

Government sources have told Euronews that the damaged aircraft was not allowed to land at any Russian airports despite the pilots’ requests for an emergency landing, and it was ordered to fly across the Caspian Sea towards Aktau in Kazakhstan.

According to data, the plane’s GPS navigation systems were jammed throughout the flight path above the sea.

The missile was fired from a Pantsir-S air defence system, Baku-based international outlet AnewZ reported, citing Azerbaijani government sources.

According to Russian sources, at the time the Azerbaijan Airlines flight was passing over the territory of Chechnya, Russian air defence forces were actively attempting to shoot down Ukrainian UAVs.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/azerbaijan-airlines-flight-was-downed-by-russian-air-defence-system-four-sources-2024-12-26/

(Sorry for not putting text, the formatting doesn't play nice with my phone).

Holy fucking shit if it's true. Russia was already a global pariah, now I doubt many airlines would agree to even enter its airspace.

 

[(‿ˠ‿) ԅ(≖‿≖ԅ)]

I am quoting you because your post is a good launching point for my own questions.

More or less likely than the tail getting struck by rocks and debris from the rest of the plane as it smashed into the ground?

I am genuinely asking anyone that may know. Sure it looks like a blast pattern... but is it? What if a chunk of dirt full of rocks got flung and broke apart before hitting the body? That seems way more likely than anything else I have heard.

Earlier in this thread I and others posted videos taken during the flight, showing that some sort of shrapnel had penetrated the fuselage well before the crash, causing obvious damage to the cabin interior and even injuring passengers. There's about 30 survivors and they're telling the media that they heard a loud explosion immediately before this event, again well before the crash happened. Russia is claiming that the damage to the empannage and resulting phugoid cycle was because a bird strike fragged an engine, but that's entirely inconsistent with the location of the damage and the fact that the engines appeared fully intact and functional in the crash video. They definitely had ample amounts of thrust if you look at the FlightAware data showing their speed and climb rate as they attempted to circle and land, instead it seems like what they didn't have were functioning control surfaces

Look, I'm not an NTSB investigator or an aerospace engineer but I've been an aircraft mechanic for the past 20 years. I've seen and repaired both bird strikes and ground strikes and they don't look like someone walked up to the plane and unloaded an M2 into it. Ground impact damage will leave obvious scrapes and gouges and even tears in the skin, not just clean holes. I cannot possibly imagine how that many rocks could be thrown with such force to cleanly and _entirely_ penetrate multiple control surfaces on the stabs, in dozens of places. What this most closely resembles is the fragmentation damage seen on the debris from MH17, or when Iran accidentally smoked their own airliner a couple years back, and the survivor accounts support the idea that the plane was hit by something in flight that wasn't no bird

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

Thanks for the informative posts, @whatever I feel like, @Standardized Profile and @(‿ˠ‿) ԅ(≖‿≖ԅ). You each answered several questions that I had not yet asked.

Christmas made this story difficult to keep up with. And I am glad you guys included references to damage after takeoff but before the crash.

 

[Enig]

@Feline Supremacist come back, I need to know where the GFM funds are going so we can get an airlane set up so russian air defense won't gun your airliner down

 

[RodgerDodger]

I am quoting you because your post is a good launching point for my own questions.

More or less likely than the tail getting struck by rocks and debris from the rest of the plane as it smashed into the ground?

I am genuinely asking anyone that may know. Sure it looks like a blast pattern... but is it? What if a chunk of dirt full of rocks got flung and broke apart before hitting the body? That seems way more likely than anything else I have heard.

Damage from the crash would look very different. thrown Rock's and debris are not moving fast enough to punch through the metal and composites of the flight surfaces so consistently and with such sharp distinct punctures. The only thing directly related to the aircraft that could make holes like that would be an engine failing in a completely catastrophic way, spewing blade fragments everywhere. But from looking at the plane, a total engine failure could not reach the upper tail surfaces. It would pepper the underside of the wings and the horizontal tail surfaces. The other big tip off to this being a missile is the majority of the damage is seemingly on the rearmost portions of the tail. The trailing edges of the control surfaces. Anything like a bird strike or engine failure would be damaging the leading edges of the tail.

If you look at the Embraer 190 the engines are mounted far forward and tightly below the wings.

There really is no angle where debris from the engine can reach the vertical tail without going through the wing. But the only wing damage was on the upper rear surface of the inboard actuator housing of the left wing.

Nothing coming from the engine or from debris that the plane is traveling through, such as birds or runway debris, could hit that spot.


If you look on the left side of the tail you can actually see the punctures show a circular pattern centered on the large hole. This is consistent with a proximity type missile detonating a few feet from the left side of the vertical tail. Peppering fragments outward in a sphere from the point of explosion. If you look at the video you can also see where a fragment punched into the cabin and dislodged a wall panel a few seats forward of the guy filming. Using the top photo as a reference the missile probably exploded adjacent to and just above the L and the U in Jetblue. And it was a relatively small missile. Smaller than the Buk M-1/SA-11 that struck MH-17 over Ukraine a few years back.

 

[OG Swolemaster]

@Standardized Profile

The missile was fired from a Pantsir-S air defence system, Baku-based international outlet AnewZ reported, citing Azerbaijani government sources.

Truly subhuman incompetence if true. The Pantsir is a short ranged system, and likely could've identified the airliner visually or with its thermal imager.

 

[National Defense Advocate]

The classic predator of Civilian Aviation. Russian Air Defense.

 

[RodgerDodger]

Konstantin from INSIDE RUSSIA is live talking about it with more details. It's horrifying. (sorry I can't link youtube livestreams).

It's more horrifying.
- As the plane approached Grozny there was a Ukrainian drone attack on the other side of Chechnya.
- Grozny denied landing clearance.
- the plane gets hit by a Russian Air Defense Missile.
- Declares an emergency.
- denied emergency landing at Grozny
- denied emergency landing at 3 other Caspian Sea Russian Airports.
- forced to fly 400 km to Kazahkstan.
- Russians were expecting plane to crash in Caspian Sea.
- Kazahkstan has denied Russian Investigators access. Just completely shut Russia down. They have not been allowed near crash or victims. Kazahkstan is bringing in outside international investigators.
-Azerbaijan is Fucking FURIOUS!

Konstantin is a Russian Ex Pat Journalist living in Kazahkstan.

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

Okay so I have another question with regards to "did Russia do it?" and stuff like that. These planes have transponders or something like that, right? Can they be spoofed or manipulated?

I don't trust anyone on any side (sides in a plane crash... fuck me) so I am looking at some of the more conspiracy stuff now because it is fun. Can people be tricked into shooting the wrong target?

Based upon what you guys are telling me, a external strike is a definite possibility or even the likely cause. And if it is at such a close range as @RodgerDodger laid out in his very good post, is ignorance or incompetence an excuse? It seems very preventable.

How many rogue missile systems are floating around out there? I've got this suspicion that the militaries of the world are not keeping track of stuff as closely as they make us think they are. At least not anymore.

 

[Smity Werbenjagermanjensen]

@Feline Supremacist come back, I need to know where the GFM funds are going so we can get an airlane set up so russian air defense won't gun your airliner down

It's like the Syria thread, they talked mad shit about how the rebel offensive was gonna get encircled or some shit and disappeared from the thread as soon as it became clear Assad was in shit creek without a paddle.

 

[OG Swolemaster]

is ignorance or incompetence an excuse? It seems very preventable.

Historically airline shootdowns are usually a perfect storm of incompetence and a high-stress environment.

Although in the case of KAL-007 the Su-15 pilot correctly identified the plane and was ordered to shoot it down anyways.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

It's starting to sound to me like Russia did shoot it down, but Ukraine isn't innocent either.

From what is being described here the plane flew into the middle of a air battle between UA Drones and RU Anti-Air systems. Sounds like a recipe for disaster and accidental shooting.

How many rogue missile systems are floating around out there? I've got this suspicion that the militaries of the world are not keeping track of stuff as closely as they make us think they are. At least not anymore.

The glowniggers literally admitted years ago that they had no way of keeping track of all the Ukrainian Aid they were sending over.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

Seriously how hard is it to not blow up planes with anti aircraft missiles they have a big indicator this is a civilian airliner do not shoot at.
Who thinks it is a good idea to fly in certain regions of the world where there's somewhat active conflicts going on

 

[Google.com]

Okay so I have another question with regards to "did Russia do it?" and stuff like that. These planes have transponders or something like that, right? Can they be spoofed or manipulated?

Even if that's a concern your supposed to check multiple sources, they should have a copy of nearby civilian flight schedules, contacts with civilian traffic control, aircraft will also be tuned to the air distress frequency which the AA operators should be broadcasting warnings to with identifying information, "Aircraft at 9000 feet altitude, speed 230, heading 210 identify yourself." if everything is done properly it should be literally impossible to shoot down a civilian airliner.

Example here timestamp 1:03

And this

 

[RodgerDodger]

Okay so I have another question with regards to "did Russia do it?" and stuff like that. These planes have transponders or something like that, right? Can they be spoofed or manipulated?

I don't trust anyone on any side (sides in a plane crash... fuck me) so I am looking at some of the more conspiracy stuff now because it is fun. Can people be tricked into shooting the wrong target?

Based upon what you guys are telling me, a external strike is a definite possibility or even the likely cause. And if it is at such a close range as @RodgerDodger laid out in his very good post, is ignorance or incompetence an excuse? It seems very preventable.

How many rogue missile systems are floating around out there? I've got this suspicion that the militaries of the world are not keeping track of stuff as closely as they make us think they are. At least not anymore.

Can an external actor spoof the transponder of a foreign plane in flight? Not really. I mean an advanced Electronic Warfare Aircraft might be able to? But it would need be in airspace they control.

The plane itself could be running a fake transponder. That happened a lot in the Iran Iraq War during the 80's. Commercial flights continued over the Middle East with the war going on around them. This resulted in 2 incidents. The Iraqi's were operating a French Dassault Business Jet converted into a strike bomber. It was flying on a civilian commercial air corridor, and launched 2 Exocet Anti Ship Missiles into the side of the USS Stark. Killing a large number of crew and nearly sinking the ship. A few months later the USS Vincennes was looking at a similar situation of a questionable transponder approaching from Iran, while they were fighting off 3 Iranian Gunboats. The Vincennes launched missiles and shot down an Iranian Air Liner.

So yes transponder games are possible. But don't seem to have been the case here. The Azerbaijan Airlines plane was displaying the correct transponder. And once hit the pilots switched the transponder to the International Distress Code.

It is much more likely Russian Air Defense Conscripts were poorly trained and panic fired on what they misidentified as a drone.

A tell tale sign of "Russian Fuck Up" is Roskosmos, the Russian Space Agency, was putting out the news that "the plane hit a large flock of birds" before the plane actually crashed. While it was still airborne and heading for Kazahkstan. They thought the plane would crash in the Caspian Sea and cover up their oh so Russian Fuck Up.