Confusion reigns over the cause behind the crash of the Azal passenger plane on December 25 that killed 38 of 67 people on board. There is conflicting evidence. Some evidence points to a bird strike, other evidence to a possible strike carried out with Russian surface-to-air missile defences protecting the Chechen capital of Grozny.

The passenger plane crashed near the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan, during a flight from Baku to Grozny. A total of 25 people survived with 22 hospitalised, the press service of the Kazakh Emergencies Ministry reported. Among those on board were two children and five crew.

Initial reports said the crash was caused after the plane struck a bird that caused an explosion, doing critical damage to one of the engines. The plane was then redirected to the Dagestani city of Makhachkala but after flying over the Caspian Sea, crash landed just short of an airport in Aktau in Kazakhstan.

The Russian government on the morning of December 26 cautioned against promoting "hypotheses" about the cause of the crash

Video footage posted on social media show what appear to be bullet holes or shrapnel damage in the fuselage and tail of the plane.

Andrii Kovalenko, Ukraine’s Head of the Centre for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, said on Telegram, as reported by Ukrainska Pravda: "Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 aircraft, which was flying from Baku to Grozny, was shot down by a Russian SAM.” 

Kovalenko said that Russia was obligated to close the airspace over Grozny but failed to do so. "The plane was damaged by Russians and sent to Kazakhstan instead of being urgently landed in Grozny to save lives,” Kovalenko added.

According to Kanan Zeynalov, a representative of the press service of Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General’s Office, a joint investigation is being conducted with the Kazakh authorities.

“We cannot disclose any investigation results at this stage. All possible scenarios are being examined, and relevant expert analyses are underway. A team led by Azerbaijan’s Deputy Prosecutor General has been dispatched to Kazakhstan and is working at the crash site,” Zeynalov stated, reported Jam News.

Kazakhstan’s KazAeroNavigation suggested that the crash took place after the plane hit a bird,, causing the steering system to malfunction. Kanat Bozumbayev, Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister has been appointed the head of the state commission investigating the crash.

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, who had travelled to the Russian Federation to participate in an informal CIS Heads of State Summit in St Petersburg, was informed of the plane crash while in Russian airspace. He immediately ordered a return to Azerbaijan and declared a day of mourning.

MH17 Redux

If it is confirmed the Azal passenger jet was shot down by Russian air defences it would be a repeat of the Malaysian commercial airliner MH17 tragedy. Just under 300 people were killed after MH17 was shot down with a Russian BUK SAM over Ukraine in July 2014.

An eyewitness account from Kristina, a survivor of the crash in Kazakhstan, posted online claimed that the plane hit a bird that caused an explosion in a video posted online.

The passengers flew over the sea for an hour before crash-landing. During the entire hour, the passengers were wearing oxygen masks and life jackets because they were over water, according to Kristina, who added in a clip posted by Russian social media platform MASH: “A bird hit the engine, causing an explosion, and the oxygen masks deployed.”

However, photos and videos of the body of the plane on the ground show what appear to be bullet holes or shrapnel damage, raising suspicions that the plane was brought down by a Russian surface-to-air missile.

Zaur Mammadov, one of the surviving passengers, said in a video recorded after his rescue that two loud bangs were heard before the crash, causing panic among the passengers, Jam News reported. Other images posted from inside the plane show limited but clearly visible damage to the interior of the plane that was caused by the explosion.

bne IntelliNews has been unable to confirm if the damage was caused by a SAM or if it would be consistent with an engine explosion caused by a bird. Most of what appears to be shrapnel damage appears to have been inflicted on the back half of the plane, behind the engines, from what can be seen in the video and images from the crash site.

Other videos shot by the passengers in the plane after the incident show passengers worried but calm. Moreover, the footage suggests the passengers were unsure what had happened.

One video from the cabin of the Baku-Grozny flight was taken just minutes before the crash by passenger Subkhon Rahimov, who recited the "kalma-shahadat" - a prayer Muslims say before death.

He sent the footage to his wife when he realised something was wrong before the plane attempted to land. However, he made no mention of a missile strike and appears to be unaware of the exact nature of the plane’s problem. Subkhon survived the crash.

There have been many reports that the airport in Grozny was under attack by Ukrainian drones, which may have led to the plane being rerouted from Grozny to Aktau. However, during the diversion, it remains possible that the plane sustained damage from a missile fired by Russian air defence, which was intercepting the drone attack.

Videos shot by the passengers before the crash show some damage to the wing and holes in the interior of the plane, but not catastrophic damage that would have been caused by a direct missile hit.

It is possible that a missile exploded near the plane, but then it is likely the passengers would have seen the explosion through the windows. It is also possible the plane was hit by shrapnel from a missile that exploded much further away from the plane out of the line of sight, but the concentration of shrapnel damage on the fuselage and in the tail strongly suggests the explosion was close to the plane. That strongly supports the theory of an explosion in the engine caused by a bird strike.