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.

 

[RodgerDodger]

Otherside of the country, coming from the opposite direction, doesn't look like a drone, doesn't have the RADAR signature of a drone, had a civilian transponder, was flying above the altitude Ukrainian penetrator drones fly at, flying faster than Ukrainian drones fly,

And was in active communication with Russian ATC.

 

[mindlessobserver]

And was in active communication with Russian ATC.

Bet big money though the Russian ATC was not in active communication with Kadyrov's goons sitting in a Pantsir though. Because there is the whole strategic ignorance shell game Russia plays with its militias. They are a "Part" of the Russian State, but they are not a "Part" of it. Much like Wagner getting absolutely shredded by the US Army in Syria after the Russian general in Syria told his American counterpart there were "No Russian Soldiers in Khasam". The Kadyrov boys are not part of Russia's integrated air defense identification protocol, because technically they are not part of the Russian military so they can't be.

I suppose the local command consoled themselves with the idea that they were giving the mountain monkeys Pantsir, which are short range SAM's that are fired at targets the operators can see with the naked eye. No way they could fuck THAT up, unlike if they handed them something with more heft like an S-400. Well, about that.

*Edit*
In another issues, US Media sources are saying that not only did Russia shoot down the aircraft, but after sending it out into caspian after refusing them permission to land they launched an Electronic Warfare attack to jam the aircrafts ability to communicate. Fucking grim man. That pushes this from tragic accident into act of war territory. Baku is going to lose its shit once this starts to percolate through the information chain more.

 

[Still Anonymous For This]

Kazakhstan breaking with Moscow though may be a more serious problem for Putin, especially since 3 years ago right before the Ukraine war kicked off Russia intervened to prop up the regime of Nazarbayev and his flunkies. The fact that the Kazakhs are refusing to engage in the Russian Ballet over the messaging of this is the clearest sign yet that Putin's grip on the region has lost much of its strength.

I think this is a bigger deal than people are realizing; particularly in relation to its close proximity to the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.

Russia is showing itself to be incredibly incompetent and it is losing allies left and right: Kazakhstan shutting them out of this investigation is huge, and I suspect Russia showing itself incapable of supporting strategic partners while fighting the war in Ukraine was the impetus for this. This is huge for a country that had to rely on Russian paratroopers to keep its government from being toppled less than three years ago.

All of this isn’t fatal to the Russian state, but when you consider Beijing will be making the same calculus as these other nations, that is fatal for Putin. China has serious territorial claims over the Russian Far East and have lodged diplomatic protests over Vladivostok celebrating its founding in the Russian Empire.

Russia is exceptionally weak and I foresee, at best, a freezing of Sino-Russian relations and at worst an attempt by the Chinese in the next few decades to retake the Far East; resources in Siberia and under the Arctic Ocean would be far more valuable to Beijing than Taiwan.

 

[God's drunkest driver]

These planes have transponders or something like that, right? Can they be spoofed or manipulated?

You could clone it and pretend to be the airliner, but that's the extent of what you can do. An aircraft transceiver responds to an interrogation signal from the radar station and replies on a separate frequency with a octal 12 or 24 bit ID depending on mode that is transmitted via either simple ASK or PPM. The data transmitted is very simple, and unencrypted. All one would need to do is decode the reply of the desired transponder and spoof it, a trivial task for modern electronic warfare, but a risky thing to do because once transponders can't be trusted everything becomes a target and your captured pilots and aircrews become targets for execution not prisoners. It's effectively impossible to spoof the position of a transponder, since it's being interrogated by a radar station that already knows its direction and distance by nature of the way it all works, the typical reply is just ID + altitude. ADS-B is a different matter with a lot more data in the reply; position, airspeed, heading, ground and vertical speed, ID, type, etc. You could spoof all of that and make an imaginary ADS-B return but it wouldn't fool mode A, C, S, etc nor radar itself.

 

[Ghostse]

In another issues, US Media sources are saying that not only did Russia shoot down the aircraft, but after sending it out into caspian after refusing them permission to land they launched an Electronic Warfare attack to jam the aircrafts ability to communicate. Fucking grim man. That pushes this from tragic accident into act of war territory. Baku is going to lose its shit once this starts to percolate through the information chain more.

Jesus christ that's bad if there is proof.

To bring the less geopolitically informed (burgers) upto speed:

Azerbaijan and Kazakhanstan are former USSR members and Muslim-Majority.
Chechnya is a muslim majority Republic that is part of the Russian Federation. It was one part of a SSR in the USSR days.

Given the microscopic memories now, people probably forget that Chechnya wanted to be independent post Soviet breakup, was told no by Moscow, and fought a war against the Russian Federation in the 90s and was semi-independent for a while. Russia fought a second war to reassert control starting in 1999 and going for the next 10 years (though most of the major fighting was done by 2004ish), "winning" by buying off one of the Chechen factions, headed by the late Akhmad Kadyrov (replaced by his son Ramzan Kadyrov).

So Kazakhanstan bucked the Bear to help fellow Muslims from Azerbaijan. This is why the strong response despite usually close ties with Moscow. Chechnya is under control of the Kadyrovs. Either Russia or Chechnya/Kadyrovs just tried to murder a plane load of Muslims to cover up that they accidentally shot them with a SAM, and may have tried to get them lost or tried to prevent them from calling for help/telling anyone what happened.

If this happens, Azerbaijan is going to be PISSED. They might be small, but they are muslim and there are Chechen separatists and other factions that hate the Kadyrovs that they can support and supply to fuck with Russia in revenge.

Chechnens make up an outsized portion of forces in Ukraine. If (and that's IF) this spirals, it would turn an area that is currently supplying Russia with combat troops into a region that Russia will need to send forces to or lose.
Its more likely that Russia does whatever is needed to placate Azerbaijan but given how fast Syria collapsed, if AZ has it in their mind to get revenge....

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

Hey I know everyone's milsperging in here and everything but...

Can someone please explain to me how this crash had survivors? I don't recall any other crashes I've ever seen where pieces of the plane were scattered like this and the plane was well away from the runway and anyone made it. They say the pilots are heroes for preserving life but...what happened, exactly? I thought for sure this was not a survivable event and early reports of survivors must be fog of war. Instead half the people walked away. What made this crash different from other crashes?

 

[(‿ˠ‿) ԅ(≖‿≖ԅ)]

Hey I know everyone's milsperging in here and everything but...

Can someone please explain to me how this crash had survivors? I don't recall any other crashes I've ever seen where pieces of the plane were scattered like this and the plane was well away from the runway and anyone made it. They say the pilots are heroes for preserving life but...what happened, exactly? I thought for sure this was not a survivable event and early reports of survivors must be fog of war. Instead half the people walked away. What made this crash different from other crashes?

It was a fairly level crash on flat and sparse terrain, rather than a controlled flight into a mountain or a high-speed lawn dart scenario like a lot of other air crashes caused by mechanical failure. Although not super common there's been other similar crashes with survivors. The most famous is probably United 232, a similar loss of hydraulics scenario, and there were more survivors (184) than fatalities (112) despite the aircraft also breaking up upon landing:

https://youtu.be/sWkU6HRcOY0?si=iIu04Vvyd9DB99Xq

 

[KiwiFuzz2]

This might be a dum dum question but one of the things that has been historically true about Central Asia is that (to use a US term) it's always been a series of dominos waiting to fall. The Mongols, the Muslims, the Russians, the Silk Road, the Persians, various Western fingers in the pie. It's as easy to take over an acre as it is to take over an empire, and vice versa.

Even though these countries are ex-Soviet and majority Muslim, there's still a lot of second-world dick kicking in the area.

Were these countries to kill the bear, who benefits? Jeets, Chinks, NATO, Saudi???

 

[National Defense Advocate]

Man, Russia is getting fucked up internationally. Hope it was worth all that bombed out farmland.

 

[Google.com]

Hey I know everyone's milsperging in here and everything but...

Can someone please explain to me how this crash had survivors? I don't recall any other crashes I've ever seen where pieces of the plane were scattered like this and the plane was well away from the runway and anyone made it. They say the pilots are heroes for preserving life but...what happened, exactly? I thought for sure this was not a survivable event and early reports of survivors must be fog of war. Instead half the people walked away. What made this crash different from other crashes?

If you look at a lot of plane crashes it mostly comes down to G-Force, if the plane had an opportunity to come to a grudual stop there is a decent possibility that at least someone survived impact. If it hit something and went from 300 knots to 0 in a second everyone's dead. Then the second concern is getting hit by debrie flying around the cabin(this is why you brace, don't listen to mentally disabled retard conspiracy theorists).

Then after impact the concerns mostly fire but the tail broke off from the wings so the survivors here didn't have to worry about that.

 

[Ghostse]

Hey I know everyone's milsperging in here and everything but...

Can someone please explain to me how this crash had survivors? I don't recall any other crashes I've ever seen where pieces of the plane were scattered like this and the plane was well away from the runway and anyone made it. They say the pilots are heroes for preserving life but...what happened, exactly? I thought for sure this was not a survivable event and early reports of survivors must be fog of war. Instead half the people walked away. What made this crash different from other crashes?

The Aviaustists I have read have said the following:
tl;dr: This was a crash landing, not a crash.

Note this is speculation from pictures, and claimed contacts with NTSB.

The plane was fucked up, depressurized, but controllable in flight. They had slight trouble changing elevation, and they had no landing gear and no flaps. They buckled everyone in for a mostly uncontrolled landing. The plane made it down to the ground controled, but with no gear it was basically landing on its belly and when fast plane meets ground, the plane sort of rolled and came apart.

More will be known when the accident investigation releases its initial findings, and especially when a "survivor map" comes out. We won't know everything until the final report, but the initial will give a good enough picture.

Another thing that helped with survivors was emergency services being alerted, ready, and close by. Fast trauma response can be the difference between bleeding out or dying of shock and survival.

This might be a dum dum question but one of the things that has been historically true about Central Asia is that (to use a US term) it's always been a series of dominos waiting to fall. The Mongols, the Muslims, the Russians, the Silk Road, the Persians, various Western fingers in the pie. It's as easy to take over an acre as it is to take over an empire, and vice versa.

Even though these countries are ex-Soviet and majority Muslim, there's still a lot of second-world dick kicking in the area.

Were these countries to kill the bear, who benefits? Jeets, Chinks, NATO, Saudi???

Chinks mostly. Turkroaches stand to improve their sphere biggly - normally I'd discount them as an outside player but with Azerbaijan beating Armenia and Syria falling to their proxy in two weeks, the Roach is ascendant and if their luck holds they might make Common Cause with the (technically) Turkic peoples of Central Asia. There is a chance of some NATO flips but unlikely.

The only way Chinks loose is if by some miracle the Stans unite to support Uighur independence. But it much more likely they dangle payoffs and shiny new cars & homes and the Stans' leaders let them go utterly nuts in their oil fields.

Honestly though I don't see a huge pivot away from Russia coming. Most likely scenario has Russia paying off the leadership with cash, miltech, and other bribes and it'll go back to normal, excepting Azerbaijan but they slipped the leash decades ago at this point.

 

[Smashed & Slamed]

determined that it was an S-200 missile that had missed its target and then, much like a pittbull with a small child, decided that civilian airliner looked tasty

Russian missiles don't have self destruct sequence for lack of lock or lost communication with launcher, only for max distance.

 

[FedPostalService]

Man, Russia is getting fucked up internationally. Hope it was worth all that bombed out farmland.

It’s going to be pretty funny when the Russian Federation falls apart and various warlords start threatening to chuck nukes at each other.

The best we can hope for is for Putin to die suddenly of “natural causes“ and someone less retarded, understands the balance of power, and just wants to embezzle money takes over.

 

[Corette]

It’s going to be pretty funny when the Russian Federation falls apart and various warlords start threatening to chuck nukes at each other.

The best we can hope for is for Putin to die suddenly of “natural causes“ and someone less retarded, understands the balance of power, and just wants to embezzle money takes over.

Why do you hate fun?

 

[Standardized Profile]

I thought this was funny. Guys were freaking out, stewardess told them to sit down and shut up, receives mildly misogynist posthumous praise.

Subkhonkul Rakhimov, a passenger from Yekaterinburg who survived the crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane in Aktau, has spoken out about the bravery and professionalism displayed by one of the flight attendants during the critical moments of the crash.

Report informs via TASS that Rakhimov praised the stewardess, who was positioned closer to the pilots, for her unwavering composure and dedication to her duties, despite the terrifying situation that unfolded.

"She maintained her composure throughout, especially considering the horrific circumstances, which would have been particularly challenging for a woman. She carried out all her functions and responsibilities that she was supposed to fulfill in such a situation," Rakhimov stated.

The survivor recalled the flight attendant's calming presence and how she effectively communicated with passengers, primarily in Azerbaijani, to maintain order and tranquility during the chaos.

"When a woman tells you to 'calm down' - I remember a man was causing a commotion - it's crucial to remain composed," Rakhimov added, commending the stewardess's ability to assert control and provide reassurance to the distressed passengers.

 

[RodgerDodger]

Chechnens make up an outsized portion of forces in Ukraine. If (and that's IF) this spirals, it would turn an area that is currently supplying Russia with combat troops into a region that Russia will need to send forces to or lose.
Its more likely that Russia does whatever is needed to placate Azerbaijan but given how fast Syria collapsed, if AZ has it in their mind to get revenge....

Relations between Chechnya and Azerbaijan have been on the verge of open Warfare for the past few months and getting worse. It's one of those situations that Putin has been trying to keep a lid on.

And Kazakhstan appears to be very done with Putins shit. They really started spiraling when Putin demanded they send troops to Ukraine. Kazakhstan told them to get fucked.

 

[Google.com]

Radio free Europe and the Mirror are sourcing this as an alleged ATC transcript (A) I don't know why they trust a random russian telegram channel but whatever.

Plugged into google translate with obvious mistakes. I don't speak russian though.

"My plane is losing control"

VChK-OGPU publishes excerpts from the transcript of the conversations between the dispatcher from Grozny and the crew of the flight "Baku-Grozny". The crew was not allowed to land in Grozny several times, then the GPS failed. And when the plane decided to fly to Baku, the pilot reported a strong impact. True, at first he thought that the plane had collided with a flock of birds. Then the plane's controls and hydraulics began to fail.

08:11:50
e: AXY8243 following Baku.

08:11:58
d: AXY8243 with current heading, gain 900m
e: With current heading, gain 900m AXY8243

08:12:12
d: AXY8243 confirm, are you going to Baku as an alternate?
e: Confirm, we are leaving for Baku, backup AXY8243

08:12:29
d: AXY8243 first dial FL80, and tell me if you can go directly to Pinta?
e: Dial FL80, we will tell you now AXY8243

08:12:48
e: AXY8243 both GPS are lost, we need vectoring.
d: AXY8243 I understand, right course 360.
e: Right course 360 AXY8243 thank you.

08:14:15
d: AXY8243 dial FL150
e: Dial FL150 (inaudible) AXY8243
d: AXY8243 and speed up dialing
e: Speed up dialing AXY8243
.....
08:16:05
e: Our controls have failed, bird strike in the cabin. Bird strike in the cabin (inaudible)

08:16:16
d: AXY8243 Got it, what help do you need?

08:16:41
e: What's the weather like in Mineralnye Vody, please help.
d: AXY8243 at 16 minutes.
e: I don't understand
d: AXY8243 at 16 minutes.
e: At what minute?
d: AXY8243 repeat your message, I can't hear you well.

08:17:15
d: AXY8243, are you okay?
er: You are okay, proceeding to Min-Vody.
d: AXY8243, do you understand, proceed with the current heading until command.
er: Understood, proceed with the current heading until command. Please, request bad weather Min-Vody.
d: AXY8243, hold, climb to FL150.
er: Climbing to FL150.

08:18:29
d: AXY8243, execute left orbit.
er: Cannot execute, control is lost. Give us vectoring to Min-Vody, and please give us the weather Min-Vody.
d: AXY8243, do you understand, hold. Left course 030
e: Left course 030

08:19:12
e: I can't maintain 150, our cabin pressure is high
d: AXY8243 Got it.

08:20:27
d: AXY8243 left course 360
e: Left 360, my plane is losing control.

d: AXY8243 for information weather Min-Vod: wind 120 degrees, 6 m/s, visibility over 10 km, solid cloud base 180 m, QNH1024 hPa, runway in operation 11
e: Give us Makhachkala.

08:21:20
e: And Makhachkala.
d: AXY8243 have you decided to proceed to Makhachkala?
e: Yes sir, give me the weather for Makhachkala.
d: AXY8243 stand by.

08:22:12
d: AXY8243 starboard course 110.
d: AXY8243 Grozny Tower.
e: On reception
d: AXY8243 starboard course 140.

08:22:57
e: Now the hydraulics have failed

08:23:03
d AXY8243 Grozny Tower.
e: On reception, our hydraulics have failed.
d: AXY8243 understood. Can you follow the courses?
e: No, we can't follow them. Give us a specific course, we'll go to Makhachkala.
d: AXY8243 left course 100, correction to the right course 100.
e: Right course 100. Makhachkala weather.

08:23:42
d: AXY8243 Makhachkala weather: wind 310 degrees 2 m/s, visibility 3300, base 750 m, haze QNH1026 hPa, band in operation 32
er: Got it

08:24:26
d: AXY8243 confirm, have you declared a distress?
er: (Unintelligible) I don't understand (unintelligible)

08:24:43
er: AXY8243 repeat.
d: AXY8243 is the aircraft okay?
er: The aircraft is okay.

08:24:55
er: Permit us (inaudible)
d: AXY8243 repeat
er: (inaudible)

08:25:09
d: AXY8243 you are unintelligible, repeat your message.
er: (inaudible)

08:25:30
er: AXY8243 how did you receive us? On reception
d: AXY8243 Grozny Tower on reception, we can't hear you very well.
er: (inaudible)

08:25:47
er: AXY8243 permit us to proceed at this altitude.
d: AXY8243 I don't see you on the control tower, tell me your altitude.

08:26:10
e: Our altitude is 80
d: AXY8243 try to reach FL100
e: If we can.

08:27:00
d: AXY8243 Grozny Tower
e: On reception AXY8243
d: AXY8243 work Rostov Control 134.1
e: Rostov Control 134.1 AXY8243

The crew of the flight "Baku-Grozny" then negotiated with the dispatcher from Rostov.

I don't buy it till I hear tapes though.

Also, highly cut footage from the fire fighters.

Spoiler: Local

 

[RodgerDodger]

Also, highly cut footage from the fire fighters.

For those wondering about the line of dozens of firefighters walking in single file. They are getting into position to do a grid search looking for victims on the ground.

 

[Ghostse]

And Kazakhstan appears to be very done with Putins shit. They really started spiraling when Putin demanded they send troops to Ukraine. Kazakhstan told them to get fucked.

I know the Kazaks told Putin to go pound sand when he asked for soldiers, but I hadn't heard it had gotten that bad. I also recall they'd been leading the grumbling about CSTO payments basically going to Moscow's coffers with limited benefit to anyone who wasn't Russia, but kept making them.

For those wondering about the line of dozens of firefighters walking in single file. They are getting into position to do a grid search looking for victims on the ground.

Yup. But not just victims. They are looking for anything someone's family can bury.

 

[Smity Werbenjagermanjensen]

Something interesting I noticed is that the vast majority of pro-Russia Twitter and the couple of Telegram channels I checked have been more or less completely silent on this. At most they may have reported on it when it happened but after the images of the crash with obvious AD damage came out, they quickly buried their hands in the sand. But when MH17 happened these types spewed out dozens upon dozens different propaganda scenarios of why it must have actually been Ukraine that destroyed it within a single day, but with this, nothing.