Aliyev launches criminal probe into Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev instructed his government to initiate a commission to investigate the cause of the Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8432 crash on Wednesday, when 38 passengers were killed as the plane attempted to make an emergency landing near the Kazakh city of Aktau.

“The commission’s task is to fully investigate the matter, examine the causes of the crash and all its details, and provide information both to me and to the Azerbaijani public,” Aliyev said in an official briefing released by the Azerbaijani Presidency.

On Wednesday afternoon, Euronews obtained information from official sources linked to the crash investigation stating that while nearing the Russian city of Grozny — the flight’s destination — surviving passengers heard an explosion followed by what looked like shrapnel hitting the plane and damaging the fuselage.

The information corresponds with a news report from Azerbaijan-based international news channel AnewZ, which quotes a Russian military blogger who claims that “the damage to the aircraft suggests that plane may have been accidentally struck by an air-defence missile system.”

Other Russian military experts have come out with the same conclusion, stating that Russian air defences around the Chechen capital might have mistaken the civilian aircraft for a Ukrainian drone. There has been no official comment from the Kremlin on these claims so far.

The Azerbaijani president says the matter needs to be fully uncovered, though he did not hint at what his government suspects is the cause behind the crash.

“The reasons for the crash are not yet known to us. There are various theories, but I believe it is premature to discuss them. The matter must be thoroughly investigated.”

The Azerbaijani leader said the public would be regularly informed of the commission’s findings and progress in the criminal case.

A total of 29 passengers on board the flight from the Azerbaijani capital Baku survived the crash and were transported to receive care for their wounds at nearby medical facilities.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev was flying himself at the time of the tragic accident. Aliyev was headed to St Petersburg to attend an informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) hosted and organised by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

“When I was informed of this tragic incident during the flight. I immediately gave instructions for the plane to return to Baku. While still in the air, I issued the necessary directives and spoke with the prime minister,” Aliyev said.

A flock of birds or missile strike?

Earlier reports suggested the plane, on its usual Baku-Grozny route, was forced to divert due to a bird strike.

However, a Russian investigative Telegram channel shared on Wednesday that it was in possession of evidence, including a full transcript of the conversation between the pilots and the control tower, that Flight 8432 first had its GPS systems fail and the dispatcher lost “radar contact,” making it impossible for the crew to land in Grozny.

The pilots then opted to return to Baku, which was when an explosion reportedly occurred near the plane, according to the Telegram channel. The plane’s hydraulics also stopped working, forcing the pilots to perform an emergency landing as soon as the aircraft was over land.

Other Russian military bloggers have made claims that the said explosion happened over the Naursky District of Chechnya, where several Russian military units are posted, including those with air defence systems, basing their conclusions on open-source data.

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Flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24 showed the aircraft making what appeared to be a figure-eight once nearing the airport in Aktau. Its altitude moved up and down substantially over the last minutes of the flight before impacting the ground.

In 2011, Russian forces in Chechnya were equipped with the Barnaul-T, which at the time was said to be capable of providing air defence to the entire region of North Caucasus.

Recently, several Pantsir systems were also deployed in Chechnya.

FlightRadar24 separately said in an online post that the aircraft had faced “strong GPS jamming,” which “made the aircraft transmit bad ADS-B data,” referring to the information that allows flight-tracking websites to follow planes in flight.

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Meanwhile, authorities in Kyiv have also alleged Russian air defence was at fault for the Azerbaijan Airlines crash.

“I would like to reiterate what I said yesterday — the holes in the fuselage of the plane during the flight are not made by birds. Passengers clearly filmed this. The air defence missile explosion damaged the plane and disabled its systems,” the head of the Ukrainian Centre for Countering Disinformation Andriy Kovalenko said in a statement.

“Russia did not close the airspace over Grozny. the plane allowed to land in Grozny or Makhachkala for no reason. Only the professional work of the pilots prevented the Russians from turning this story into a Russian provocation against Ukraine,” Kovalenko added.

“And now Russia will do everything to hide its own guilt in the plane crash and the loss of life.”

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Social media videos gathered by AnewZ news channel appear to show the aircraft struggling to make an emergency landing and breaking up in a fireball as it hits the ground.

A spokesperson for Azerbaijan Airlines said the airline is cooperating with the investigation but has assured the public that all necessary medical and psychological support will be provided to victims of the crash and their families, regardless of nationality.

According to Azerbaijan Airlines, 37 passengers were Azerbaijani citizens. There were also 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhstani and three Kyrgyzstani citizens.