Reports from Azerbaijani investigators indicate that the Embraer plane that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday (25) was accidentally shot down by an anti-aircraft missile as it approached Grozny, capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, to land.
The information was passed on to several media outlets, such as the Reuters agency and the Euronews TV channel, anonymously. The investigation of the case is ongoing, and may have the help of the São Paulo manufacturer – the Brazilian Air Force (FAB), which can also participate in the initiative due to the Brazilian production of the aircraft, reported this Thursday (26) that it sent three investigators to offer technical support. Officially, the Azerbaijani government said there was no formal conclusion on the case.
The hypothesis, as Folha reported on Wednesday, stems from the analysis of damage to the tail of the Embraer E-190, which was left almost intact after the pilots attempted an uncontrolled landing in Aktau, on the east coast of the Caspian Sea.
In it, holes are visible in the fuselage compatible with what happens when an anti-aircraft missile explodes. It does not hit the target, but detonates at a certain distance to produce a cloud of shrapnel, maximizing damage to the enemy.
According to analysts interviewed by the report, no collision with birds, as reported by the Russians, would cause such damage.
Furthermore, reports from survivors indicate an explosion outside the plane. Video taken by one of them also shows damage similar to small perforations that hit the aircraft’s oxygen mask system. At least one life jacket on the plane was punctured by shrapnel.
Videos of the attempted landing in Aktau show that the plane was without full control of its hydraulic system, maneuvering based on the thrust of its engines, rising and falling in a poorly controlled manner. The elevators, the wings on the plane’s tail that make it rise and fall, and the vertical stabilizer’s rudder were riddled with shrapnel.
38 of the 67 occupants of the device, which has an impeccable operational history, died in the tragedy.
Russia has not yet commented on the report. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said it would not be prudent to comment while the investigation was ongoing. Caution suggests that if the accidental shooting scenario becomes clear, Moscow should accept responsibility, not least because it has good relations with Azerbaijan.
At the time the flight operated by Azerbaijan Airlines was flying over Russian territory, there were records of attacks with Ukrainian drones in the region. Makhachkala airport, the capital of Dagestan, was closed when the E-190 flew over the area.
Officially, authorities in Grozny said the city’s airport had poor visibility for landing due to fog, and the flight was diverted. Why he erratically crossed the Caspian Sea and did not head for some Russian airfield was not explained.
According to the Reuters and Euronews report, the Azeris said that the Russians did not allow the landing and guided the new route – Aktau would be the closest airport, despite being hundreds of kilometers away.
Tracking was almost impossible because the region is heavily influenced by GPS signal jammers. The Caspian Sea, despite being far from the theater of the Ukrainian War, is one of the favorite firing points for cruise missiles carried by Russian strategic bombers against the neighboring country.
Thus, navigation over the region is affected, aiming to protect military planes from attacks.
Drone attacks are common problems in Russia. This Thursday (26), the four airports in Moscow and Kaluga, 160 km from the capital, were temporarily closed due to the threat of a larger attack, which did not occur.
CONFLICT ZONE INCREASES THE RISK OF ACCIDENTAL SLAUGHTER
If the accidental slaughter is confirmed, it will join a long list of similar incidents. One of the most notorious occurred in eastern Ukraine in 2014, at the beginning of the civil war that led to the current conflict between Moscow and Kiev.
A missile fired from territory controlled by Russian separatists hit a Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777, killing 298 people. Russia denies having supplied the anti-aircraft battery to the rebels at the time.
In 2020, a Ukrainian commercial plane was mistakenly shot down by Iran’s anti-aircraft defense while taking off from Tehran, leaving 176 people dead. The context was also one of war: the Iranians had just retaliated against American targets in the Middle East, after the United States killed the country’s most important general in Baghdad.
Ukrainians were also involved, in this case with a certain historical irony, in the downing of a Russian Tupolev-154 over the Black Sea in 2001. On that occasion, Kiev was carrying out a joint military exercise with its still ally Moscow when the anti-aircraft missile was fired, killing 80 people.
In 1988, it was the turn of the USA to shoot down an Iran Air Airbus-A300 in the Persian Gulf, during a patrol in which a ship mistook the device for a hostile aircraft. The incident left 290 people dead.
Also in the throes of the Cold War, the Soviet Union shot down a Korean Air Boeing-747 that went astray and invaded its airspace in the far east of the country. The incident, in which 269 occupants perished, further aggravated tensions in 1983, the closest point to conflict between the Soviets and Americans since the 1962 missile crisis.
