Russia 'denied emergency landing' to Azerbaijan Airlines plane and 'jammed GPS system' before crash

27 December 2024, 09:47 | Updated: 27 December 2024, 10:05

New details have emerged in the case of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed into the sea killing 38 people, raising suspicions of Russian involvement.

The plane was on route from Baku in Azerbaijan to Grozny in Russia, and was rerouted due to heavy fog before crashing near Aktau airport in Kazakhstan.

Mobile phone footage circulating online appeared to show the aircraft making a steep descent before crashing into the ground in a fireball.

Other footage showed part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings, and the rest of the plane lying upside down in the grass.

It was previously reported that experts thought it increasingly likely that a Russian air defence system brought down the plane in Kazakhstan, which killed 38 people and injured all the other 29 passengers.

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However, new reports claim that Russia denied the plane an emergency landing, despite it suffering critical damage and the pilot’s repeated pleas, at three different airports.

The Azeri Times also claims that Russia then tampered with the plane’s GPS system, forcing the pilot to divert the plane over the Caspian Sea.

The outlet says this was a deliberate attempt to make the plane crash in water to conceal any evidence of an attack.

Earlier, aviation analysts said images from the crash site point to damage from an air defence system, while multiple sources have told the Reuters news agency the same.

It is believed Russia used its Pantsir-S system to shoot down the plane, which was travelling over Chechnya, where Russia was actively shooting down Ukrainian UAVs.

Former pilot Terry Tozer told LBC: "It's looking probably 90% sure it was hit by a missile. The close-up shots of the tail section that the people scrambled out of is peppered with holes, it looks very much like shrapnel and that fits completely with (video footage of the crash), this was an aircraft where the crew were quite obviously struggling to control it.

"Close-ups show a lot of their normal landing aids were not being used which backs up the idea of complete hydraulic failure with loss of control so I think the pilots did a pretty remarkable job to get it where they did."

If this evidence is confirmed, it would be the second time in a decade that Russia shot down a commercial airplane, after the MH17 crash in Ukraine in 2014.

A national day of mourning was held in Azerbaijan on Thursday, with flags lowered across the country.

The Kremlin has asked people not to speculate about the cause of the accident before an official investigation wraps up.

Russia's civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said preliminary information indicated that the pilots diverted to Aktau after a bird strike led to an emergency on board.