Did Russia shoot down Azerbaijan Airlines Flight J2-8243?

Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Combating Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, announced that: “This morning, an Embraer 190 plane of the Azerbaijani airline flying from Baku to Grozny was shot down by a Russian air defense system. Russia was supposed to close the airspace over Grozny, but it did not do so. The plane was damaged by the Russians and was sent to Kazakhstan instead of being emergency landed in Grozny and saving lives.”

Grozny has been the target of a number of retaliatory Ukrainian drone attacks in recent weeks. The misfortune of J2-8243 to arrive in Grozny shortly after such an attack. It appears that Russian air defenses mistook the Embraer for a Ukrainian drone and engaged it with unidentified systems.

Surviving passengers said that during the third attempt to land in Grozny there were explosions outside the plane and the flight was then diverted across the Caspian to Aktau in Kazakhstan.

Passenger video from inside the plane showed signs of shrapnel damage and one female passenger suffered a leg injury.

As the plane crossed the Caspian, the crew began experiencing control problems, which may have been the result of a hydraulic failure. There appears to be evidence to support the theory that as the aircraft approached Aktau, the crew controlled the aircraft largely using engine power and trims, and that He had been flying for more than 50 minutes with control systems that had failed, struggling to maintain his attitude and heading. There are some parallels with the non-fatal loss of an Air Astana E190 on November 11, 2018, which encountered control issues after departing from Alverca Air Base in Lisbon and had to divert to Beja.

Tragically, the plane crashed just a few kilometers from the Aktau airstrip.

Russian military sources reportedly confirmed that flight J2-8243 was “shot down by mistake by a Pantsir SAM system of the Russian Aerospace Forces.” These sources explain that Ukraine attacked Grozny at exactly the same time and in the same direction as this plane reached the city. The Pantsir SAM battery crew mistook it for a Ukrainian Aeroprakt A-22 suicide drone and fired a missile.

See our original report at https://aerospaceglobalnews.com/news/christmas-day-air-crash-about-40-feared-dead/