“In Baku they believe that the plane was sent to Kazakhstan so that it would fall into the sea”

Putin apologized to Aliyev for the “tragic incident.” How Baku sees the circumstances of the Embraer disaster and what measures they are preparing for, an Azerbaijani military expert answers

Fighting off Ukrainian drones, Russia created an international scandal: Baku is confident that the Embraer plane that crashed in Kazakhstan was hit by a Russian missile, and they are demanding an official apology. Moscow is silent in response, and Ramzan Kadyrov awarded his nephew, who reported on the destruction of all drones in the skies over Chechnya. Novaya Gazeta Europe discussed the official position of Baku with an Azerbaijani military expert.

UPDATED
While the material was being prepared, it became known that Vladimir Putin apologized to the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev for the fact that the “tragic incident” with the Azerbaijan Airlines plane occurred in Russian airspace.

Agil Rustamzade

military analyst and expert in the field of defense and security, former combat pilot of the Azerbaijan Air Force

Agil Rustamzade was one of the first to say that the Azerbaijani plane was shot down by a Russian missile. According to him, there is no official doubt in Baku about the causes of the plane crash:

— After the plane crash, I made my own conclusions, which coincided with the official version. I assumed that the Azerbaijani civilian aircraft was attacked by the Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft missile and gun system, which led to damage to the ship.

I don’t think that in Grozny there was an intention to shoot at a civilian aircraft; most likely, it was mistaken for a drone. The plane was shot down while Grozny and Vladikavkaz were attacked by Ukrainian drones. Another thing is that the plane approached the city from the northern side, and not from the southern side, from where Ukrainian drones usually fly.

Pantsir-S1 has two operating modes: automatic, when the system itself selects targets for destruction, or it was the operator who confused the plane with a drone and himself decided to launch the missile.

— When exactly on that day, December 25, was the drone attack and how exactly was the plane damaged?

— There was definitely an attack that day, there was an explosion in Vladikavkaz. And Kadyrov himself stated that targets were shot down in the sky over Grozny.

This could happen within an hour or half an hour of each other. Most likely, the plane was shot after the drone attack, but when the air defense system was still in a state of combat readiness, and the GPS suppression systems were also working.

The plane was not shot down, but damaged, and received numerous damage to the tail section, where two control circuits are located. One of them allows the plane to tilt and lift its nose to gain altitude, the second helps the pilot correct the direction.

The pilots reported that they were losing control and that they had serious problems with hydraulics. I'll try to explain using a car as an example - try turning the steering wheel in a car when the hydraulic system is turned off. It's the same with airplanes: the hydraulic system is under a lot of pressure, and when it begins to leak fluid due to damage, the pressure decreases and the airplane becomes increasingly difficult to fly.

Any specialist knows that if problems with hydraulics begin, the cumulative effect is important: the more time passes, the more difficult it is to control the aircraft.

Therefore, the situation was greatly aggravated by the fact that the plane was not allowed to make an emergency landing at the nearest airfield on the territory of the Russian Federation.

The exact extent of the damage is not yet clear; the “black boxes” have not yet been deciphered.

But as far as I know, after the plane was shot down, both engines continued to work. In addition, immediately after the missile strike there were not even seriously wounded on board - two people were slightly injured.

Russian air services had to allow the plane to land as quickly as possible - then they could agree on what to say about the causes of the damage.

If they had landed the plane quickly, most likely, so many casualties could have been avoided. Thirty minutes after the damage was sustained, the plane became much more difficult to control.

There are many airports in the 100-kilometer zone around Grozny: Stavropol, Astrakhan, Magas... But the decision was made to send the plane through the Caspian Sea - this can only be explained by the desire to hide the air defense error.

It turns out that instead of quickly landing the plane, it was sent to sink into the sea. This is meanness, and society in Azerbaijan perceives it that way.

We understand that if the plane had not been sent to Kazakhstan, these 38 people would not have died.

— How is the investigation going now?

— Baku has not yet received the “black boxes” from the plane, although representatives of the Embraer company are on site. Russia is now trying with all its might to hush up this matter.

Russia and Kazakhstan proposed to jointly study the causes of the plane crash, but Baku did not agree that this investigation should be carried out within the CIS.

We demanded that an international aviation commission be created with the participation of representatives of the aircraft manufacturer Embraer, as well as Turkish specialists. I think this was the right decision and we will eventually establish the truth.

In principle, the investigation should only clarify the details, since it is already clear from the wreckage what’s what.

— What does Baku now demand from Moscow?

— First of all, recognition and apology. Most likely, the air defense strike on the passenger plane was a mistake. But the reaction that followed is no longer a misunderstanding. Directing a plane in distress across the Caspian Sea to an airport several hundred kilometers away was a deliberate move.

Therefore, now in Baku they believe that the plane was sent to Kazakhstan so that it would fall into the sea, after which it would be almost impossible to detect an air defense error.

During the 2020 Karabakh war, Azerbaijan shot down a Russian combat helicopter. We then apologized and expressed our willingness to pay compensation. The Russian side greeted this with understanding. There were no problems at the state level.

This is what Baku now expects from Russia - an apology and compensation. The problem is that Russia does not want to admit that it shot down this plane.

When the tragedy occurred on December 25, President Ilham Aliyev's plane was heading to St. Petersburg, but turned around and returned to Baku. During the flight, the president was provided with information about what happened and, most likely, immediately pointed out inconsistencies in the versions put forward by the Russian side. There were birds and an explosion of an oxygen tank...

Azerbaijani experts did not believe in these versions from the very beginning. Even if a bird got into one engine, the plane had a second one, and the flight could continue calmly. But we saw that the plane crashed due to control problems.

Now in Moscow they are generally silent, they say nothing about the reasons for the plane crash. The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, offered financial assistance to the victims. However, Baku refused this.

Azerbaijan saw Kadyrov’s proposal as disdainful. We need an apology first. After all, we are not a poor state, we do not need handouts.

According to generally accepted world practice, Russia is obliged to pay compensation to the company that owns the aircraft, as well as to the families of the dead and wounded.

That is, the difference is precisely in the wording - the offer of financial “help” looks like a handout, because Azerbaijan itself is capable of providing assistance to anyone.

Of course, if the Russian Federation does not apologize for the incident, there will be some cooling in relations between Moscow and Baku.

— How long will the ban imposed by Azerbaijan on restricting flights to Russia last?

— We must take into account that there are from 2 to 3 million Azerbaijani citizens in Russia. At the same time, Azerbaijan’s land borders are now closed. So there will be restrictions for now, and then they will apply according to the situation.

What happened to the Baku-Grozny flight and how events developed

Facts

On the morning of December 25, an Embraer 190 aircraft of Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL), operating flight J2-8243 from Baku to Grozny, attempted to make an emergency landing.

Air traffic controllers denied the plane an emergency landing in Grozny and Makhachkala and sent it to Kazakhstan, across the Caspian Sea. The pilots managed to bypass a residential area and made a hard landing in the steppe, a few kilometers from Aktau. The plane exploded and caught fire. The tail section broke off but survived. The bow part was completely burnt out.

There were 67 people on board, including five crew members. Of these, 42 are citizens of Azerbaijan, 16 of Russia, six of Kazakhstan, and three of Kyrgyzstan. The plane crash killed 38 people, including two pilots and a flight attendant. 27 passengers survived - those at the rear of the plane and two crew members. Among the survivors is an 11-year-old girl.

According to Azerbaijan Airlines, the plane that crashed was manufactured in 2013. In October 2024, the liner underwent a full technical inspection.

Before the tragedy in Aktau, there were only three plane crashes involving Embraer-190 airliners, accompanied by the death of passengers. In one case, a terrorist attack occurred.

Versions

Immediately after the crash, the Russian media disseminated a statement by the press secretary of Rosaviatsia, Artem Korenyako, according to which the plane was damaged after a collision with a flock of birds and was forced to head for the airfield in Aktau, since there was thick fog in Grozny and Makhachkala, and landing was impossible .

However, the version with birds began to look implausible immediately after videos of the crashed plane appeared. On the skin of the airliner, many holes are clearly visible, very similar to traces from the damaging elements of a rocket.

The surviving passengers confirmed that they heard and felt the explosion not inside the plane, but outside.

Based on these facts and data from sources in Baku, several European media outlets ( Euronews and Reuters ) reported that the damage and subsequent crash could have been caused by a Russian missile that exploded near the plane. Also, the temporary disappearance of the airliner from radars was explained by the use of electronic warfare systems by the Russian military.

The American NBC News also spread a version about Russian air defense, citing “two military officials”: ​​“The United States has intelligence that indicates that Russia mistakenly identified an Azerbaijani airliner as a Ukrainian drone and shot it down using an air defense system.”

The Azerbaijani TV channel AnewZ also reported that, according to a preliminary investigation, the plane was damaged by fragments of a surface-to-air missile from the Russian Pantsir-S air defense system.

Against this background, the Kremlin urged “not to discuss hypotheses and not to rush to conclusions about the causes of the crash.”

“It would be wrong to build any hypotheses before the conclusions of the investigation,” said the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov. “We, of course, will not do this, and no one should do this.” We need to wait for the investigation to be completed.”

Only two days later, on December 27, the Russian aviation department remembered the drone attacks and the “Carpet” plan, which provides for the “immediate withdrawal of all aircraft from the specified space.”

The head of the Federal Air Transport Agency, Dmitry Yadrov, noted that “the situation on that day and at those hours in the area of ​​Grozny airport was very difficult. At that time, Ukrainian drones launched terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure in the cities of Grozny and Vladikavkaz.”

Yadrov also claimed that that day “there was dense fog, there was no visibility at an altitude of 500 meters.” As a result, according to the version of the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency, the commander of the Embraer crew himself made the decision to fly across the sea to Kazakhstan:

“The commander made two unsuccessful attempts to land the plane in Grozny. The commander was offered other airports, he decided to go to Aktau airport.”

In an official statement on the cause of the crash made by AZAL airline, the causes of the accident in Aktau were described as "physical and technical external influences."

Baku

The message about the plane crash on December 25 caught the President of Azerbaijan in flight:

he was heading to St. Petersburg for the annual informal summit of the heads of state of the CIS. Ilham Aliyev called Vladimir Putin and said that he would not be able to take part in the event.

The presidential plane returned to Baku.

In Azerbaijan, December 26 was declared a day of national mourning for those killed in the plane crash.

According to Azerbaijani media, the pilots of the downed plane Igor Kshnyakin, Alexander Kalyaninov and flight attendant Hokyuma Aliyeva will be buried at the II Alley of Honor in Baku. All crew members were citizens of Azerbaijan.

AZAL Airlines announced that it will pay compensation to the passengers of the Baku-Grozny flight that crashed: 20 thousand manats (about $11,700) and 40 thousand manats (about $23,500) to the families of each deceased.

In addition, all passengers will receive an insurance payment in accordance with international practice, the airline noted.

After reports of the death of colleagues and passengers at the Baku airport, the New Year tree was dismantled and dismantled.

Apologies

The very next day after the incident, Azerbaijani parliament member Rasim Musabekov told the local publication Turan that the Russian side should apologize to Baku.

“The plane was shot down on Russian territory, in the sky over Grozny. And it is impossible to deny this. <…> “Such are civilized relations. If air defense is working, then the airport should be closed, a notification should be given so that no one flies here.”

Musabekov believes that instead of “acting adequately to the situation and apologizing,” in Russia “some people take certain actions in the media in order to cover their tracks.”

“Those who committed this must be brought to justice, compensation must be paid for the deaths and victims. If this does not happen, then the relationship, of course, will flow into another plane,”

- said the deputy, who is a member of the Committee on International Relations and Interparliamentary Relations of the Majlis of Azerbaijan.

The day before, information appeared in the Azerbaijani media, citing the presidential administration, that Baku had refused financial assistance to the families of the dead and injured, offered by the leadership of Chechnya on behalf of Ramzan Kadyrov.

“Azerbaijan does not need any help. Neither the state nor the citizens will accept such help. We are providing and will continue to provide the necessary assistance to our citizens. Azerbaijan demands recognition of the fact, an apology and payment of appropriate compensation,” a source in Ilham Aliyev’s administration told the press.

Kadyrov

On December 24, Secretary of the Chechen Security Council Khamzat Kadyrov announced on his Instagram about the destruction of all drones in the skies over Chechnya.

He became practically the only official who confirmed that Chechnya was attacked by drones. “The information that the drones hit some object is not true, everything was shot down!” — he wrote in a commentary on a video of the destruction of one of the drones.

The next day, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, awarded Khamzat, his nephew, with the medal “For Services to the Chechen Republic.” Khamzat Kadyrov also posted a video of his award ceremony on Instagram, accompanying the footage with a song with the words: “A fiery wind curls near the mountain peaks, flying around the night mists in the distance.”

Flight refusal

The Azerbaijan Civil Aviation Agency yesterday announced the suspension of flights from Baku to 10 Russian cities, “taking into account potential risks to flight safety.”

From December 28, 2024, flights from Baku to Mineralnye Vody, Sochi, Volgograd, Ufa, Samara, Saratov, Nizhny Novgorod and Vladikavkaz will be suspended. Since December 25, flights to Grozny and Makhachkala have also been suspended.

At the same time, AZAL will continue to operate flights to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Astrakhan, Kazan and Novosibirsk.

In addition, three more airlines refused to fly to Russia - from Kazakhstan, Israel and Dubai.

After a “risk assessment,” Kazakhstan’s Qazaq Air suspended flights from Astana to Yekaterinburg “to ensure the safety of passengers and crew members.” The restrictions will be in effect from December 28 to January 27, 2025.

Israeli airline El Al suspended flights from Tel Aviv to Moscow for a week. The company will reassess the situation next week to decide whether to resume flights.

And Flydubai airline canceled flights from Sochi and Mineralnye Vody to Dubai from December 28 to January 5, indicating force majeure and a threat to flight safety.