What we know so far about the Azerbaijani airline crash that killed more than 30 people
A Russia-bound Azerbaijani airliner crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday after being diverted, killing 38 of 67 people on board. Some experts alleged that the plane went down after being hit by Russian air defence systems.
Here’s what is known so far.
How did the plane crash?
Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 was en route from Azerbaijani capital Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted for reasons that aren’t fully clear yet.
It crashed while making an attempt to land in Aktau, Kazakhstan, after flying east across the Caspian Sea.
At least thirty-eight people were killed after an Azerbaijan Airlines plane bound for Russia crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas morning, a Kazakh official said, adding that 29 others, including two children, survived the disaster. Investigators continue to work to determine what caused the crash.
The plane went down near the coast about three kilometres from Aktau. Cellphone footage circulating online appeared to show the aircraft making a steep descent before hitting the ground and exploding in a fireball.
Rescuers rushed the 29 people who survived the crash to hospitals.
How did Azerbaijan react?
Azerbaijan observed a nationwide day of mourning on Thursday. National flags were lowered across the country, traffic across the country stopped at noon, and signals were sounded from ships and trains.
Speaking at a news conference Wednesday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that it was too soon to speculate on the reasons behind the crash, but said that the weather had forced the plane to change from its planned course.
“The information provided to me is that the plane changed its course between Baku and Grozny due to worsening weather conditions and headed to Aktau airport, where it crashed upon landing,” he said.
What do officials, experts say about a possible cause?
Kazakhstani, Azerbaijani and Russian authorities say they are investigating the crash.
Embraer, which is a Brazilian aircraft manufacturer, told The Associated Press in a statement that the company is “ready to assist all relevant authorities.” Brazil has sent three Air Force investigators to Kazakhstan to “provide technical support” in a probe of the crash.
Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said that preliminary information indicated that the pilots diverted to Aktau after a bird strike led to an emergency on board.
Some commentators alleged that the holes seen in the plane’s tail section pictured after the crash possibly indicate that it could have come under fire from Russian air defence systems fending off a Ukrainian drone attack.
Mark Zee of OPSGroup, which monitors the world’s airspace and airports for risks, said that the analysis of the fragments of the crashed plane indicate with a 90-99 per cent probability that it was hit by a surface-to-air missile.
Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security firm based in the United Kingdom, warned its clients that the “Azerbaijan Airlines flight was likely shot down by a Russian military air-defence system.”
Osprey CEO Andrew Nicholson said that the company had issued more than 200 alerts regarding drone attacks and air defence systems in Russia during the war.
In Azerbaijan, online newspaper Caliber claimed that the airliner was fired at by a Russian Pantsir-S air defence system as it approached Grozny. It questioned why Russian authorities failed to close the airport despite the drone attack in the area on Wednesday. Khamzat Kadyrov, head of Chechnya’s Security Council, said that air defences downed drones attacking the region on Wednesday.
Caliber also asked why Russian authorities didn’t allow the plane to make an emergency landing in Grozny or other Russian airports nearby after it was hit.
Asked Thursday about the claims that the plane had been fired upon by air defence assets, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “it would be wrong to make hypotheses before investigators make their verdict.”
Kazakhstan’s parliamentary Speaker Maulen Ashimbayev also warned against rushing to conclusions based on pictures of the plane’s fragments, describing the allegations of air defence fire as unfounded and “unethical.”
Other officials in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have similarly avoided comment on a possible cause of the crash, saying it will be up to investigators to determine it.
Published at Thu, 26 Dec 2024 13:02:23 +0000
Finland seizes tanker carrying Russian oil suspected of knocking out internet, power cables
Finnish authorities on Thursday seized a ship carrying Russian oil in the Baltic Sea on suspicion it caused the outage of an undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia a day earlier, and that it also damaged or broke four internet lines.
The Cook Islands-registered ship, named by authorities as the Eagle S, was boarded by a Finnish coast guard crew that took command and sailed the vessel to Finnish waters, a coast guard official said at a press conference.
“From our side we are investigating grave sabotage,” said Robin Lardot, director of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation.
“According to our understanding, an anchor of the vessel that is under investigation has caused the damage.”
The Finnish customs service said it had seized the vessel’s cargo and that the Eagle S was believed to belong to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of aging tankers that seek to evade sanctions on the sale of Russian oil.
Two fibre optic cables owned by Finnish operator Elisa linking Finland and Estonia were broken, while a third link between the two countries owned by China’s Citic was damaged, Finnish transport and communications agency Traficom said.
A fourth internet cable running between Finland and Germany and belonging to Finnish group Cinia was also believed to have been severed, the agency said.
“We are co-ordinating closely with our allies and stand ready to support their investigations,” said a spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council, adding that the incident underscored the need for closer international co-operation on safeguarding critical undersea infrastructure.
“We are following investigations by Estonia and Finland, and we stand ready to provide further support,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in a post on social media X.
Both the Finnish and Estonian governments held extraordinary meetings on Thursday to assess the situation, they said in separate statements.
Baltic Sea nations are on high alert for potential acts of sabotage following a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since 2022, although subsea equipment is also subject to technical malfunction and accidents.
The European Union said it strongly condemned any deliberate destruction of the continent’s infrastructure.
“We commend the Finnish authorities for their swift action in boarding the suspected vessel,” said a joint statement from EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body.
Repairing the 170-kilometre Estlink 2 interconnector will take months, and the outage raised the risk of a strained power supply during the winter, operator Fingrid said in a statement.
Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal said, however, that his country would continue to have sufficient access to electricity.
The Eagle S Panamax oil tanker crossed the Estlink 2 electricity cable at 10:26 a.m. GMT on Wednesday, a Reuters review of MarineTraffic ship tracking data showed, identical to the time when Fingrid said the power outage occurred.
United Arab Emirates-based Caravella LLCFZ, which according to MarineTraffic data owns the Eagle S, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Peninsular Maritime, which, according to MarineTraffic acts as a technical manager for the ship, declined to comment outside of the company’s opening hours.
‘Disrupt and deter’
Damage to subsea installations in the Baltic Sea has now become so frequent that it is difficult to believe this was caused merely by accident or poor seamanship, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in a statement.
“We must understand that damage to submarine infrastructure has become more systematic and thus must be regarded as attacks against our vital structures,” Tsahkna said.
The 658-megawatt (MW) Estlink 2 outage began at midday local time on Wednesday, leaving only the 358 MW Estlink 1 in operation between the two countries, operator Fingrid said.
Twelve Western countries on Dec. 16 said they had agreed on measures to “disrupt and deter” Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of vessels in order to prevent sanctions breaches and increase the cost to Moscow of the war in Ukraine.
“We must be able to prevent the risks posed by ships belonging to the Russian shadow fleet,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb said in a post on social media X on Thursday.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys said the growing number of Baltic Sea incidents should serve as a stark and urgent warning to NATO and the European Union to significantly enhance the protection of undersea infrastructure there.
Police in Sweden are leading an investigation into the breach last month of two Baltic Sea telecom cables, an incident German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said he assumed was caused by sabotage.
Separately, Finnish and Estonian police continue to investigate damage caused last year to the Balticconnector gas pipeline linking Finland and Estonia, as well as several telecom cables, and have said this was likely caused by a ship dragging its anchor.
In 2022 the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream gas pipelines running along the seabed in the same waters were blown up, in a case still under investigation by Germany.
Published at Fri, 27 Dec 2024 01:50:19 +0000
