The first deadly accident anyplace on the earth involving a passenger jet in 2024 occurred on Christmas Day.

Thirty-eight passengers and crew died when Azerbaijan Airways flight J2-8243 from the airline’s hub at Baku to Grozny, the capital of Russia‘s Chechnya, crashed wanting Aktau airport in Kazakhstan; 29 survived.

“We are going to always remember the beloved individuals we misplaced within the crash of the Embraer 190 plane,” mentioned Azerbaijan Airways in an announcement posted on-line on Boxing Day.

The professional-government AnewZ information station cited Azerbaijan officers as saying shrapnel from a Russian missile was accountable.

They allege the stricken plane was then denied permission to land at close by airports in Russia and urged to move throughout the Caspian Sea to Aktau.

The information service mentioned: “Presumably, this advice was given for one function: for the aircraft to fall into the Caspian Sea, all witnesses could be killed and the aircraft would sink.”

If Russian air defence motion is discovered to have precipitated the crash, shoot-downs can be an ever-more widespread reason behind fatalities in aviation accidents.

At a time when air security is bettering globally, navy motion towards civil plane is an growing concern.

These are the important thing questions and solutions.

What do we all know in regards to the flight?

Azerbaijan Airways flight J2-8243, operated with an Embraer 190 passenger jet, took off from Baku airport at 7.55am native time on 25 December 2024. On board: 62 passengers, three cabin crew and two pilots. Their nationalities:

Their vacation spot was Grozny, a distance of 301 miles from Baku.

The precise course of the flight is troublesome to establish from publicly out there sources due to GPS interference, which is prevalent in areas near Russian borders. However the aircraft crossed the Caspian Sea from west to east on a extremely erratic course with large variations in altitude.

As soon as on the east facet of the Caspian, above Kazakh territory, the aircraft flew in a determine of eight and crashed two miles wanting Aktau airport – which is the place the pilots have been hoping to land. The flight had lasted two hours and quarter-hour.

The crash website is 270 miles from the unique vacation spot, Grozny, and 240 miles from the start line, Baku.

The plane broke up on impression. Survivors have been within the rear a part of the cabin, which remained largely intact and didn’t catch hearth.

Inform me extra about GPS interference?

International Positioning System (GPS) relies on alerts obtained from a number of orbiting satellites. Whereas the info usually give international protection of location to inside just a few metres, nations concerned in battle can both spoof GPS alerts, offering a false location, or jam the alerts.

Each strategies forestall plane pilots from figuring out their exact location by GPS. The follow additionally conceals plane areas from open-source plane trackers resembling Flightradar24. This organisation has produced a map of GPS jamming areas, which embrace the Center East, Russian borders, a lot of Ukraine and the northern Black Sea, and the Caspian Sea.

Evaluation of a sequence of flightpaths on flights to and from Grozny means that interference covers the area between the Dagestan coastal metropolis of Makhachkala and the Chechen capital.

Why did the aircraft not land in Grozny as deliberate?

Numerous accounts have been given. They embrace fog, though proof of the prevailing climate doesn’t seem to help this. Others say that the airport was closed due to a Ukrainian drone assault, with planes diverted. The one diverted flight on Christmas Day that The Unbiased has been in a position to determine is of the crash plane.

What theories have emerged about the reason for the crash?

Images of the stays of the fuselage present many perforations per an anti-aircraft missile assault.

Initially Russia claimed the plane had struck a flock of birds, which led to the crash. However in accordance with the Azeri information channel AnewZ, authorities sources in Baku say the aircraft was hit by shrapnel from a Russian Pantsir-S air-defence system, disabling most of the flight controls.

The account says a drone assault on Grozny was confirmed on Christmas Day morning, and that airspace ought to have been closed to civilian plane.

Chillingly, the AnewZ report says: “Our flight was additionally not given permission to land on the airports in Makhachkala and Mineralnye Vody.

“The disoriented crew of the flight, which was subjected to air defence hearth and digital warfare techniques, was really helpful to land within the Kazakh metropolis of Aktau.

“Presumably, this advice was given for one function: for the aircraft to fall into the Caspian Sea, all witnesses could be killed and the aircraft would sink.”

“Nobody claims that it was achieved purposefully,” the report continues. “Nevertheless, taking into consideration the established info, Baku expects the Russian facet to admit to the taking pictures down of the Azerbaijani plane, and to conduct a full investigation, which is able to end in bringing to justice all these accountable.”

Are unintended shoot-downs widespread?

More and more so, and sometimes involving Russia and Ukraine. In October 2001, a Siberia Airways aircraft from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk was shot down over the Black Sea by a surface-to-air missile throughout a joint Russian-Ukrainian navy train.

In July 2014 MH17, a Malaysia Airways flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over rebel-held Ukraine. A Russian anti-aircraft system was deployed towards the Boeing 777, killing all 298 on board.

In 2020, Iranian air defence personnel utilizing a “misaligned risk detection system” shot down a Ukraine Worldwide Boeing 737 quickly after departure from Tehran to Kiev, costing the lives of all 176 on board.

What does the Kremlin say?

Very quickly after the crash, Russia’s civil aviation regulation mentioned preliminary info recommended the pilot had determined to make an emergency touchdown after a fowl strike.

However a day later, a Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, mentioned: “It might be unsuitable to place ahead any hypotheses earlier than the investigation’s conclusions. We, after all, won’t do that, and no-one ought to do that. We have to wait till the investigation is accomplished.”

What different causes might there have been?

A large spectrum of prospects from a catastrophic failure of an plane system to a hijacking of some type. Chechen separatists have, up to now, attacked Russian planes.