Investigators looking into the crash of an Azerbaijan flight that happened on Christmas, killing dozens of people on board, believe the aircraft was blasted out of the sky by Russian antiaircraft fire. Good grief. Russia really is working hard to tick the world off, aren’t they? Do these guys want another global conflict? I sincerely hope not. Our world cannot bear such a crisis right now. Things are in utter turmoil.
According to The Daily Wire:
An investigation by Azerbaijan indicated that the plane was “hit by a Russian antiaircraft missile, or shrapnel from it,” The Wall Street Journal reported. Separate aviation experts said that there was visible evidence that the plane had been hit by a munition. The flight from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, was headed for Grozny, Russia when it “suddenly diverted course when flying over a part of Russia where the military had been shooting down Ukrainian drones,” the report said. “The plane went down in western Kazakhstan near the Caspian Sea city of Aktau.”
Sources familiar with the investigation told The Journal that Russia refused to allow the plane to land on its soil and that Russia intentionally jammed the plane’s GPS.
This is a full length video of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan. What the hell happened? pic.twitter.com/7CL6SwMne8
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) December 25, 2024
Out of a total of 62 passengers and five crew members who were on board the jet, 38 were killed and 29 survived. Many of those who managed to escape death are still in critical condition as of this writing. Individuals who survived stated that they heard a loud explosion go off before the flight started to experience issues.
“Everyone heard the explosion,” Subkhonkul Rakhimov, who survived the incident, stated in an interview with RT.
Russia’s Federal Air Traffic Agency claimed that the plane hit a flock of birds.
You didn’t think they’d actually cop to blowing up a plane did you? If they really did blast it out of the sky, it was likely an accident. No way President Vladimir Putin allows his nation’s military forces to look incompetent. He’s going to try and control that narrative all the way.
WSJ Chief Foreign-Affairs Correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov highlighted a report from an Azerbaijani publication that highlighted how Russia turned the aircraft out of its airspace and what Azerbaijani officials believe the reason was:
As is known, the Grozny airport refused to allow the aircraft to land. Moreover, the Azerbaijani aircraft was also denied landing permissions at the airports in Makhachkala and Mineralnye Vody. The disoriented crew, subjected to air defence fire and electronic warfare (EW) systems, was redirected to the Kazakh city of Aktau. It can be assumed that this recommendation was given with one goal: to have the aircraft crash into the Caspian Sea, where all witnesses would perish and the aircraft would sink.
Kill and hide. Azerbaijani officials tell local media that Russia hit flight J2-8243 with an anti-aircraft missile and then jammed electronics and denied permission to land in three airports, steering the damaged plane into the Caspian Sea so that it would crash there and… pic.twitter.com/BuXePAteTJ
— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) December 26, 2024
Zaur Shiriyev, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center stated that Azerbaijan is expecting “not only an apology but also an explanation as to why the pilots’ request to land was denied and why their GPS was jammed over the Caspian Sea—both of which could have saved the plane and its passengers.” An official with the country’s government told the media that they don’t believe the aircraft was purposefully shot down, but they are expecting Russia to admit they are at fault for the incident.
“Sources told the publication that they believe a Russian Pantsir-S air defense system is what shot the plane down. A U.S. official said that preliminary findings from the investigation showed that there were signs that the plane was hit by a Russian anti-aircraft system,” the report said.