EPAOn December 25, 38 people died when an Azerbaijan Airlines flight, due to land in Russia, crashed in Kazakhstan.
The circumstances of the crash remain unclear, but limited evidence so far suggests it may have been damaged by missiles fired by a Russian air defense system as it attempted to land in Chechnya.
Here’s what we know about flight J2-8243.
The flight takes off
Early in the morning of Christmas Day, flight J2-8243 took off from the airport in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. He was due to land in Grozny, the capital of the Russian region of Chechnya.
On board were 67 passengers, most of whom were Azerbaijani nationals, as well as nationals of Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
The plane was an Embraer 190, operated by Azeri Airlines.
Approach to Grozny
As the plane approached Grozny, it entered thick fog, surviving passengers say.
They describe the pilot attempting to land the plane twice in these conditions.
It was on the third attempt, survivors say, that they felt a series of explosions hit the plane.
“The third time something exploded… part of the plane’s hull exploded,” one of them told Russian television.
A flight attendant on the plane, Zulfuqar Asadov, told local media that the impact of the strike “caused panic inside.”
“We tried to calm [the passengers] down to make them sit down. At that moment there was another blow and my arm was injured,” he said.
A video filmed in flight by a passenger showed oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling.
Azerbaijani Transport Minister Rashad Nabiyev said: “All [the survivors] without exception, they reported hearing three explosion sounds when the plane was over Grozny.”
He said the plane was subjected to “external interference” and damaged internally and externally as it attempted to land.
In recent weeks, Ukraine has targeted Chechnya and other parts of the Russian Caucasus with drone strikes.
After the crash, Moscow authorities said such attacks had triggered a protocol to close airspace over Grozny.
According to local officials, a drone was shot down that morning by air defense over a shopping center in Vladikavkaz, in neighboring North Ossetia.
It is not clear whether the closed airspace protocol – known as the “carpet plan” – was adopted before or while flight J2-8243 was in Russian airspace.
Diversion to Kazakhstan
After the incident over Grozny, the plane diverted about 450 kilometers east to Aktau airport in Kazakhstan.
It remains unclear why it was diverted over the Caspian Sea – a much longer journey than several other options.
Russian aviation authorities said the plane’s pilots were “offered other airports” but chose Aktau.
Data published by flight tracking site Flight Radar shows the plane zigzagging up and down as it approached Aktau, before spinning and crashing a few kilometers from the airport.
Crash landing
Video taken near the scene shows the plane descending rapidly through the air before crashing to the ground and skidding several hundred meters in a ball of flames.
38 people were killed and 29 survived, some seriously injured. Remarkably, some survivors were seen walking and crawling from the plane wreckage.
The plane’s pilots are credited with saving lives by successfully landing part of the plane, although they themselves were killed in the crash.
It is believed that most of those who survived were seated in the back.
Was it hit by Russian air defense?
Initial Russian media reports suggested the plane had collided with a flock of birds.
However, aviation experts and others in Azerbaijan believe the plane’s GPS systems were affected by electronic jamming and that it was later damaged by shrapnel from missile explosions Russian air defense systems.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Friday that the United States had “early indications” that Russia was responsible, but declined to comment further.
The Azerbaijani government has so far avoided directly accusing Russia, but Azerbaijani government sources told the Reuters news agency that the investigation had already identified the weapon fired during the flight as the Russian anti-aircraft system Pantsir-S.
The Kremlin has so far refused to comment on reports that the plane was hit by Russian weapons.
“An investigation… is underway and until the conclusions of the investigation are drawn, we do not consider ourselves entitled to give any assessment,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The investigation
The plane’s flight recorders, which contain data to determine the cause of the accident, have been found.
Reports in Baku suggest that Russia and Kazakhstan have proposed that a committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) – a regional organization dominated by Russia – investigate the accident, but Azerbaijan has instead called for an investigation international.
Azerbaijan Airlines and several other airlines suspended flights to some Russian cities in response to the crash.
