Passenger plane Embraer-190which crashed in western Kazakhstan on Wednesday, could have stayed shot by Russian anti-aircraft defense systemrepelling Ukrainian drone attacks on Grozny, reported the opposition Nastoyashchee Vremya television, banned in Russia.
Plane, flying from Baku to Azerbaijan to the capital of Chechnya, Grozny, crashed on Wednesday morning near the city of Aktau on the Kazakh coast of the Caspian Sea. In a disaster 38 died of the 67 people on board the machine.
Disaster in Kazakhstan. The bird thesis is not very credible
On Wednesday evening, the initial version of events was reported as follows Due to dense fog over Grozny, the plane was to be redirected to an alternate airport in the capital of Russian Dagestan, Makhachkala, but the machine most likely collided with a flock of birdswhich resulted in a failure of the control system.
Since a flight to Makhachkala would require flying over a mountain range, the plane was redirected to Aktau on the opposite shore of the Caspian Sea. The plane was trying to make an emergency landing fell apart and burst into flames.
However, the material published by Nastoyashchee Vremya shows that the rear, unburnt part of the plane is riddled with holesand the holes resemble traces of shelling. War analyst Jan Matwiejew stated in the same material that as the plane approached Grozny, Russian air defenses repelled Ukrainian drone attacks using Pantsir-S1 surface-to-air missiles. At least one drone has been documented as being shot downpart of which fell on the shopping center, causing a fire.
– The traces of shrapnel on the side of the plane do not indicate that it was directly hit by the Pantsir-S1, they are too small. More likely than not such a missile exploded some distance from the aircraft and (that the plane – ed.) was damaged by shrapnel, as a result of which it lost control – said Matveyev.
Disaster in Kazakhstan. Holes in the machine's skin
The version about the collision with the bird is also questioned by the recording that appeared online. You can see many of them holes in the rear part of the wreck, on the vertical and horizontal stabilizers. The Ukrainian website TSN indicated that the traces are characteristic of anti-aircraft weapons. Information about unusual damage to the skin does not appear in any official announcement from the authorities.
In addition, both Nastoyashchee Vremya and the Baza channel published frames from inside the plane, provided by survivors of the crash. These materials show that some passengers were still bleeding before the plane went down. According to the already mentioned Matveyev, “this may be the result of shrapnel that penetrated the plane.”
– For now, it is not 100 percent possible. confirm aircraft firing, however”unlikelyso that the thesis about the loss of control as a result of the plane colliding with a swarm of birds could be defended – the analyst emphasized.
Investigation in Kazakhstan. Russian diplomats on site
Information about drone attacks was reported on Wednesday morning by two regions neighboring Chechnya. Reuters confirmed that the closest airport to the Embraer route is Makhachkala Russia was closed for several hours on Wednesday morning.
The Kazakh authorities reported that a government commission was established, which is to investigate the causes of the disaster. Kazakhstan is to cooperate in this matter with Azerbaijan. Russian diplomats also went to the site of the tragedywho were supposed to help Russian victims of the disaster.
Interestingly, the Kazakh section of Radio Svoboda reported on Thursday morning that blogger Azamat Sarsenbayev, who was filming the crash site from a drone, was detained and sentenced to 10 days in detention. The reason for the arrest was failure to comply with police orders. Sarsenbayev claims that he filmed the scene at the request of the BBC and Reuters.