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Posted

An Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash on Christmas Day has prompted speculation the plane was shot down by Russia after it took a detour of hundreds of miles in the wrong direction and crash-landed with holes in the fuselage.

Russian military bloggers have suggested the plane, which crashed near the Kazakhstan city of Aktau, could have been mistaken for a Ukrainian drone.

The incident, which killed at least 38 people and injured a further 29, took place after a significant detour, which could have been caused by GPS jamming.

The Embraer 190 aircraft made an emergency landing 3km from the Aktau, an oil and gas hub on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, on Wednesday.

It was flying from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya in the north Caucasus.

 
 
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Posted
55 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

These both cover it nicely.

 

 

Sorry, haven't watched the videos, so this may already be covered:

Is it not possible that those perforations were caused by, you know, the crash itself?

Posted

No. If you watch some of the cabin video (I dont want to link it but you can find it yourself) you can see the oxygen masks deployed, before the plane crashed, when it was at altitude. There are also some pictures showing perforations of the interior fittings of the aircraft, suggesting something penetrated the aircraft at altitude (ill be amazed if there wasnt casualties from this) Not something a bird generally does, and even the famous 'Sully' crash, none of the birds ever penetrated the aircrafts cabin.

Yes, it is just about conceivable an engine exploded and showered the tail with fragments. Added to there already being fragments in the aircraft before it touched the ground, and the engines were running just fine before it hit the ground (about the only thing that was still working), and the hydraulics, which generally all run through the tail and were perforated seemingly before it hit the ground, you can rule that out I think.

I should add something that might be relevant. When I was creating my marker files of Soviet Army barracks (i really should start on that again), I was doing the Baku area, and to the north, seemingly near where the aircraft passed, there was in Soviet times a Soviet air defence training unit. Seemingly someone is still is using it, because when you look at the region on Google Earth, all the pictures are censored. Which is a strange coincidence, or maybe not a coincidence at all.

 

Posted

Gosh, ok.

I guess evidence that there were perforations before the crash would certainly indicate something untoward.

Perforations after the crash could, of course, be caused by a multitude of things - hitting the ground is not very friendly to aircraft skins.

The other thing I don't understand is the flight path... How and why did it end up on the wrong side of the Caspian Sea?

Posted

Radio transcript I saw claimed bird strike at the cockpit, but I don't know if it was genuine.

If the perforations were caused by missile fragments, that would imply a missile hit from behind: one rumour claimed that the plane was engaged by a Russian warship on Caspian Sea: as the plane was rerouted, it would not have shown up in flight schedules.

Posted
7 minutes ago, Yama said:

Radio transcript I saw claimed bird strike at the cockpit, but I don't know if it was genuine.

If the perforations were caused by missile fragments, that would imply a missile hit from behind: one rumour claimed that the plane was engaged by a Russian warship on Caspian Sea: as the plane was rerouted, it would not have shown up in flight schedules.

That certainly sounds plausible.

It's not like shooting down airliners by mistake is entirely unheard of.

Personally, I'm going to wait until this evolves beyond internet chatter to draw any conclusions.

Posted

Reposting:

Looks like AD shot an own goal. 

 

"An Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer E190 crashed today. Prior to the crash at an airport while attempting to land it exhibited an erratic flight pattern indicative of severe control issues. After crashing the plane split in two, the forward half burned and all inside it was killed. The tail section however remained reasonably intact and around 28 people reportedly survived, but some of them in a very bad condition.

 

What’s noteworthy is that in video footage shot of the tail section after the crash it shows a very distinct shrapnel impact pattern on the fuselage. Exactly how SAM damage to aircraft usually looks like. Example here:"

 

https://x.com/oalexanderdk/status/1871944982984335500?s=46

 

 

 

"Yeah, some additional info is saying that the plane was headed to Grozny, but was waived off twice due to drone strikes against targets there. Then they diverted across the Caspian Sea into Kazakhstan and it would seem that they got hit while over the sea. The suggestion from some is that the most likely scenario is that one of the Russian naval vessels in the Caspian Sea decided that they were a drone and shot them up. So very similar to the Hornet shoot down in that sense."

Posted

The large number of small holes in areas of otherwise intact fuselage look exactly like you'd expect from a frag warhead going off near. That, or getting hit from the side by a horde of supersonic high-altitude beetles, but not bird strike, crash damage, or an unscheduled engine self-disassembly.

Only death and taxes are 100% sure but the probability of the aircraft not being shot down looks next to nil based on the photos. 

I can easily see the pilots also assuming bird strike as the first assumption for suddenly getting hit by something in the mid-air. Highly unlikely they saw what hit them.

Posted
1 minute ago, jmsaari said:

The large number of small holes in areas of otherwise intact fuselage look exactly like you'd expect from a frag warhead going off near. That, or getting hit from the side by a horde of supersonic high-altitude beetles, but not bird strike, crash damage, or an unscheduled engine self-disassembly.

Only death and taxes are 100% sure but the probability of the aircraft not being shot down looks next to nil based on the photos. 

I can easily see the pilots also assuming bird strike as the first assumption for suddenly getting hit by something in the mid-air. Highly unlikely they saw what hit them.

I see your "small holes" and raise you the entire other two thirds of the aircraft being wrecked.

Sorry, I don't mean to call into question the AD shoot down theory - like I said, I think it sounds plausible on the information we have at the moment - but if those small holes appeared during the crash itself, they could easily have been caused by a number of other things (not least of which is debris or aircraft parts whizzing around as the airframe made contact with the ground).

Posted
48 minutes ago, ink said:

Gosh, ok.

I guess evidence that there were perforations before the crash would certainly indicate something untoward.

Perforations after the crash could, of course, be caused by a multitude of things - hitting the ground is not very friendly to aircraft skins.

The other thing I don't understand is the flight path... How and why did it end up on the wrong side of the Caspian Sea?

I think the video explains it better, but they were seemingly aiming for an airport which was nearer, and a lot of room about it. Which was a good decision by the pilots, even thought the poor buggers didnt benefit from it themselves.

Posted (edited)
21 minutes ago, ink said:

I see your "small holes" and raise you the entire other two thirds of the aircraft being wrecked.

Sorry, I don't mean to call into question the AD shoot down theory - like I said, I think it sounds plausible on the information we have at the moment - but if those small holes appeared during the crash itself, they could easily have been caused by a number of other things (not least of which is debris or aircraft parts whizzing around as the airframe made contact with the ground).

Did you see the crash footage? It broke on impact and the front half rolled over and burned, hence the destruction; the rear fuselage didnt, hence survivors there, and there we also see perforations from the side and above, around otherwise pretty clean, unharmed sheets of fuselage and airfoil. That would be very hard to explain by debris from impact: would be hard to imagine getting high enough velocity debris to punch holes like that; or leaving the surroundings of the surfaces as unharmed as they are..

Edited by jmsaari
Posted
13 minutes ago, jmsaari said:

That would be very hard to explain by debris from impact: would be hard to imagine getting high enough velocity debris to punch holes like that; or leaving the surroundings of the surfaces as unharmed as they are..

I think I must have a better imagination 😎

Posted

Plus, on impact, debris carries the same forward momentum as the rest of the plane; the fuel conflagration expels fragments mostly off to the sides. That the tail end gets peppered as shown is best explained by high density (steel+), high hardness (steel+), high velocity objects. The punctures are surrounded by paint-free circular areas where the surrounding metal was bent inwards.

One or two holes, and I could buy your theory. These are about 100, concentrated on the tail section - nope, missile.

Posted
11 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

 nope, missile.

Fair enough.

Is the current theory that missile shrapnel struck the tail in roughly those two areas that are visible in most pics being shared online?

Posted

There are videos from within the cabin - before the crash - that show damage to the plane and a life vest peppered by shrapnel.

Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, ink said:

Gosh, ok.

I guess evidence that there were perforations before the crash would certainly indicate something untoward.

Perforations after the crash could, of course, be caused by a multitude of things - hitting the ground is not very friendly to aircraft skins.

The other thing I don't understand is the flight path... How and why did it end up on the wrong side of the Caspian Sea?

There are multiple stories from survivors (and smartphone videos from inside the plane while still in flight) of fragments damage long before the crash (including at least one passanger bleeding etc.) so the strory of missile hit is quite possible, especially taking into account the incident coincided with another wave of drone attacks in the region (for example, another drone was shot down over Vladikavkaz and caused fire in big shopping mall by falling on it). 
For example video from inside the plane showing oxygen masks out and damager to left wing

https://t.me/olegtsarov/20974

Passanger injured 

https://t.me/milinfolive/138465

   Most of pro-Russian sources are quite ok with the version of SAM missile hit and consider it sideeffect of official attempts to imitate peacetime while at war.

 

Edited by Roman Alymov
Posted

The culprits are the Ukrainian terrorists. If they would not attack Russian cities, there would be no SAMs fired.

Posted

P.S. From https://t.me/milinfolive/138523

"Going back to yesterday's crash.

These images show a comparison of damage to the tail section of the IL-22, which successfully landed in Anapa after a close hit by an anti-aircraft missile (https://t.me/milinfolive/114448 ), with the tail section of the Embraer E190 that crashed in Aktau.

Firstly, one can notice the obvious similarity of the affected area, as well as the fact that anti-aircraft missiles often carry two types of GPE - larger and smaller. 

Secondly, it also suggests that it is not necessarily necessary for a large aircraft to fall like a stone from a nearby detonation of missiles. He should have fallen on a direct hit, or from a heavy missile launcher, but more on that later. 

The theory of receiving such damage as a result of contact with the ground seems to us untenable.

As can be seen in the pictures, the tail of the aircraft remained intact, which means it did not turn over and did not drag the keel or rudder along the ground, which could theoretically provide holes in it.

The fact that the damage was sustained in the air is indicated by the videos of passengers who recorded the presence of holes in the wings (https://t.me/milinfolive/138461 ) with fuselage (https://t.me/milinfolive/138465 ) even before the plane hits the ground.

The inevitable fall of the side can be caused by the close detonation of heavy missiles. For example, as in the case of a Patriot missile hitting an Il-76 (https://t.me/milinfolive/124810 ) over the Belgorod region, when a rocket detonated near the cockpit instantly killed the pilots and turned half of the side into a sieve.

The version of a collision with a kamikaze drone also seems unrealistic to us for two reasons.

First of all, this requires that the aircraft and the kamikaze drone occupy approximately the same level at an altitude of several kilometers, but enemy UAVs usually fly at the lowest possible altitude of a maximum of tens or hundreds of meters to avoid radar detection and complicate their defeat for air defense.

But even in the case of a coincidence of heights, a direct collision and detonation of a warhead weighing even 30-50 kg, like the Liuty-type drone (https://t.me/milinfolive/138153 ) will cause irreparable destruction of the aircraft and its instant fall. What can we say about the converted A-22 airplanes, which are light-engine aircraft and carry even more explosives (https://t.me/milinfolive/134433 ).

The downed Russian Mi-8 can be considered as examples of holes from various striking elements of missiles of different SAM systems (https://t.me/milinfolive/100602 ) in the Bryansk region, or the downed Ukrainian MiG-29 (https://t.me/milinfolive/111300 ), who was able to survive and return.

It remains to wait for the conclusions of the investigation, which, in addition to Russia, will naturally involve Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan."

Posted

Holes are clearly from AD, characteristic "square" holes from pre-formed fragments are visible.

Damage looks to be too much for MANPADS, but fits with B or C zone Pantsyr/Tor warhead detonation.

Posted
20 minutes ago, bojan said:

Holes are clearly from AD, characteristic "square" holes from pre-formed fragments are visible.

Damage looks to be too much for MANPADS, but fits with B or C zone Pantsyr/Tor warhead detonation.

What's B or C zone?

Posted

In short A - 95% destruction probability, B - 75%, C - 50% for a fighter sized target. Longer version has requirements for certain amount of fragments per m^2 with certain velocity and energy of fragments.

Posted
1 hour ago, seahawk said:

There are videos from within the cabin - before the crash - that show damage to the plane and a life vest peppered by shrapnel.

Yeah, just posted those up.

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