“Something Strange Happened With the Plane”

Officials in Kazakhstan will now take charge of the investigation on the crash and have invited officials from Azerbaijan as well as independent experts and representatives of Embraer, the Brazilian company that built the aircraft.

While the precise timeline and causes of the crash are still unknown, footage from inside the plane before the crash as well as the conditions of the fuselage on the ground prompted the circulation of three main versions of the events: the plane could have been in the crossfire of Russian air defense strikes; a collision with birds could have damaged the external gear; a technical malfunction could have caused internal damage.

An Unexpected Detour

The Azerbaijan Airlines flight took off from Baku on Wednesday morning and was supposed to quickly fly to Grozny, 475 km to the north. A direct flight usually takes about 1 hour 20 minutes. About 30 minutes after takeoff, when it was already flying over Russian territory, the plane disappeared from the radars, according to Flightradar data. Its signal then appeared and disappeared three times, which could be a sign of GPS suppression.

The plane was unable to land in Grozny allegedly due to weather conditions. Notably, at the same time, Ukrainian drones had launched an attack over the city, according to data from three sources, including the Secretary of the Chechen Security Council. In the same hours, drones were shot down over the nearby regions of Ingushetia and North Ossetia.

Subhonkul Rakhimov, one of the survivors, said yesterday that the pilots tried to land the plane three times in Grozny, but "the third time something exploded."

“Why didn’t they land [in Grozny, after attempting] three times - I don’t get it, I don’t know. Maybe it was the automatic landing system, or GPS signal suppression… Something prevented the plane from landing in Grozny,” pilot Alexey Gervash said in a video on his channel.

"There was an explosion: I cannot say it was inside the plane. Where I was sitting, the plastic lining next to me flew off," Rakhimov said.

Videos from inside the plane, filmed by surviving passengers, show that oxygen masks were hanging inside the cabin and people were asked to put on life jackets. Some passengers were covered in blood and needed medical help, while the plane’s plastic lining was partially damaged.

The rest of the flight path over the Caspian Sea and the fact that it flew in several circles while approaching Aktau also indicate that the plane's systems were malfunctioning.

"Something was happening. The plane was doing strange, incomprehensible things. There were heavy oscillations both on pitch and roll. It jumped both in altitude and speed. Iit seemed like the plane was sending a distress signal,” Gervash said.

Counterstrike, Birds, or a Glitch

Immediately after the crash, medical services in the Mangistau region reported that an oxygen tank on board the plane could have exploded. A few hours later, Russian pro-war Telegram channels published a video of the remains of the plane, which clearly shows holes on the fuselage of the plane, especially on the tail and wing.

Such holes could be the result of shrapnel damage in case the plane was fired upon by anti-aircraft missiles.

This led analysts to believe that people inside the plane mistook a missile hit for the explosion of the oxygen tank.

Kazakhstan’s authorities did not comment on this version. Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev, who leads the government commission investigating the disaster, said last night that it was too early to draw any conclusions.

Initially, the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency had argued that the crash was caused by a collision with a flock of birds. Experts, however, deem this version unlikely, because planes regularly collide with birds, and while this can lead to an emergency landing, it rarely results in crashes.

“Honestly, I don’t believe it happened because it hit birds. Embraer makes excellent, very reliable planes. In terms of safety, in my opinion, they’re better than Boeing and Airbus. There is even direct access to the controls if the electronic systems fail. The plane can be controlled manually. It’s hard to believe that a collision with birds would completely disable all the controls of the plane,” Gervash said.

The high reliability of Embraer aircraft casts doubt on the version that alleges technical malfunction. Russian news agencies quoted anonymous sources as supporting this version.

“Aviation safety has reached such levels today that if something happens, it’s more likely to be some kind of external interference or some extraordinary circumstance,” Gervash concluded.

Kazakhstan’s authorities have not yet set a timeframe for completing the investigation into the air crash near Aktau. It could take several weeks or many months.