A passenger jet that crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, killing 38 people, was likely shot down by a Russian anti-aircraft missile, according to multiple reports.
Azerbaijan Airlines Flight J2-8243 was originally meant to fly about 300 miles from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny in Russia.
The region, the North Caucasus, has been under frequent attack from Ukrainian drones — including one that was shot down about 50 miles from Grozny just three hours before the Azerbaijan Airlines crash, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Four sources told Reuters that a Russian air defense system appears to have hit the airliner with an anti-aircraft missile. That conclusion was exchoed by US security sources, according to reports from CNN and ABC News.
Another source familiar with the investigation told Reuters that preliminary findings determined the plane was hit by a Russian Pantsir-S mobile surface-to-air missile system — and that its communications were then jammed by Russian “electronic warfare systems.”
Photos of the jet’s fuselage pockmarked with holes and other images from the crash site indicate the plane was hit with shrapnel from a missile, Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security company, said, according to the WSJ.
“No one claims that it was done on purpose. However, taking into account the established facts, Baku expects the Russian side to confess to the shooting down of the Azerbaijani aircraft,” one source said, referencing the Eurasian nation’s capital.
The Embraer 190 passenger jet crash-landed hundreds of miles off course — across the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan, just outside the Aktau airport.
Dramatic video showed a frantic rescue mission underway amid the wreckage; the Kazakh Health Ministry later published a list of 29 survivors, two children among them.
Russian officials originally claimed the plane was experiencing technical problems due to a bird strike.
Authorities did not immediately explain why it had crossed the sea, and neither Russian nor Kazakh nor Azerbaijani leaders have confirmed Reuters’ sources as to the cause of the crash.
However, it was later revealed one of the plane’s oxygen tanks had exploded, which further ignited speculation about whether the jet may have unknowingly crossed paths with Russian air defenses.
Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Qanat Bozymbaev told Reuters he could neither confirm nor deny that Russian air defences downed the plane.
On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned against jumping to conclusions during his daily press conference.
“It would be incorrect to make any hypotheses before the investigation comes to conclusions, and we definitely cannot do it and no one should do it,” he admonished.
The incident draws eerie parallels to similar commercial airliner shootdowns involving Russia or Ukraine.
Korea Airlines Flight 007
In 1983, Korea Air Lines Flight 007 heading from JFK International Airport to Seoul was shot down by a Soviet Sukhoi Su-15 interceptor jet after accidentally entering prohibited Soviet airspace.
Soviet forces treated the unxpected incursion as US spy plane, and fired on it with air-to-air missiles. The jet went down in the Sea of Japan and killed all 246 passengers and 23 crew on board, including Georgia Rep. Lawrence McDonald.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
In 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by Russia-backed forces with a Buk 9M38 surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine, according to a Dutch-led investigation team at the time.
The flight originated in Amsterdam and was bound for Kuala Lumpur. All 283 passengers and 15 crew on board were killed, making it the deadliest shooting down of a commercial plane to date.
A Dutch court tried two Russians and a Ukrainian separatist in absentia in 2022 and found them guilty of murdering the 298 passengers on board.
Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752
Then, in 2020, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired surface-to-air missiles at a Ukraine International Airlines jet flying from Tehran, Iran to Kyiv, killing all 176 passengers and crew on board.
Iran’s government initially denied involvement in the deadly disaster, but after a global intelligence gathering operation, the regime admitted the missiles were fired after mistaking the passenger jet for a US cruise missile.
The incident came just days after US forces killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani with a drone strike, and inflamed already nasty tensions between the countries.
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