On December 25, 2024, Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243, an Embraer ERJ-190 aircraft, crashed near Aktau, Kazakhstan, during a diverted landing attempt. Originally bound from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Grozny, Russia, the flight carried 62 passengers and five crew. Official counts on fatalities vary between 38 and 40, with upwards of 27 to 29 survivors pulled from the wreckage.
Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Emergency Situations revealed that the plane impacted the ground about 1.8 miles short of Aktau Airport’s Runway 11 before erupting into flames. Initial rescue teams managed to save multiple survivors, including children, who were taken to area hospitals.
Footage from the scene—showing thick clouds of smoke billowing from the mangled fuselage—prompted earlier speculation of a bird strike. Pilots reportedly encountered strong GPS jamming and spoofing, losing stable Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) signals en route. The crew diverted first to Makhachkala, Dagestan, because of fog, then eventually set course for Aktau.
Trigger warning:
Insane. This is a video from the inside of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that went down in Kazakhstan. pic.twitter.com/W0pQFT69D1
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) December 25, 2024
However, new video has raised questions about whether the aircraft sustained damage from an anti-aircraft missile or other munitions. Telegram channel “Fighterbomber,” known for its connections to Russian military aviation, circulated footage of the aircraft’s tail riddled with what appear to be shrapnel or fragment punctures. Additional images and clips show similar damage around the left wing and inside the cabin, suggesting potential external impact rather than a simple bird strike.
Russian and pro-military social media channels theorize that air defenses intended for incoming Ukrainian drones or other threats may have inadvertently targeted the Embraer. Ukrainian sources, including the Head of the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation, have publicly accused Russian forces of firing on the plane. Survivors reported hearing what sounded like an explosion just before the aircraft lost stability, with sections of the fuselage and interior seats torn by sharp fragments.
The situation around Grozny, capital of the Chechen Republic, had reportedly grown tense earlier in the day, as drone strikes ignited a shopping mall in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, and air defense forces in the region went on high alert. Citing adverse conditions, air traffic control barred flight J2-8243 from landing in Grozny. Faced with that and weather complications elsewhere, the pilots made the call to attempt an emergency landing across the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan.
Occurrence aircraft 4K-AZ65, credit: Mehmet Mustafa Celik via Wikimedia Commons
Conflicting accounts persist about the root cause of the crash. Some argue that bird ingestion into the engines or an internal oxygen tank malfunction led to the emergency diversion. Others point to the pockmarked tail and cabin as strong evidence of shrapnel, suggesting possible misidentification by ground defenses. Azerbaijan Airlines has suspended its operations to both Makhachkala and Grozny pending further investigation.
The CVR and the FDR will tell an interesting story.
Any word on whether any of the crew are among the survivors?
@Gary
In your earlier post, before the ‘bullet holes’ evidence was reported, I suspected this could be another MH17 ‘misidentification’ or outright purposeful downing of a commercial aircraft situation (because they are that dumb or reckless). I am saddened but not surprised by this potential update. What is remarkable is how the pilots managed to still fly across the Caspian Sea and save some lives. If there is an actual investigation, and if it is determined that the Russians did actually shot at this aircraft, I’m sure the Russians who attempted this murder of innocents will unfortunately face no real consequences, as with MH17. I image these fools had hoped that the plane would end up in the sea, destroying the evidence of their crimes. If this ends up being the truth, that is pure evil. Be wary of routes that go anywhere near Russia these days.
What does the number 112 mean on the video?
Too many holes for gunfire. That was a missile. .
I’ve seen two videos of the crash, one from the Independent and one from The Point. They look different from each other. In the one from The Independent, the plane comes in at a much steeper angle, and frankly it does not look like a survivable crash to me. It also didn’t look like an ERJ-190. The one on The Point shows a plane coming in at a much more shallower angle and a survivable impact. The takeaway is that we’re going to see a lot of videos that purport to be of this crash, and they won’t be. Sadly, this is the world we live in now.
@LAX Tom
No, what Gary shared seems to be the plane. And it looks like it was hit by anti-aircraft. We can wait for a full investigation, but in that part of the world, we should not expect the full truth to ever be revealed to the public.
Nice attempt to sprinkle in plausible deniability, though. Maybe, it was just the fog. Perhaps, there was no plane at all. ‘RBMK reactors do not explode’. What is the cost of lies?
Note to anyone you care about: Check your potential flight path. Do not route anywhere near Russia. Obviously these folks were literally flying to Russia, so…
IF the coverage showing shrapnel-like damage to the fuselage and tail of the aircraft holds up, then I agree that a missile near miss is a strong possibility. In the 20+ years I was in the industry, I never heard of a cabin O2 generator exploding inflight. The damage on the aircraft is inconsistent with an O2 generator explosion because it’s obvious that whatever caused it was external.
Ukraine had been attacking the area with drones. This flight was likely misidentified as a drone and hit by local air defenses.
Like with the MH downing, this underscores the importance for all airlines to monitor the current global security status in real-time, and make ongoing risk assessments accordingly – sometimes on short notice.
Pointing fingers to a specific party in the conflict(s) isn’t helpful. Ultimately, it is each airline’s responsibility to operate safely and securely based on all intelligence available.
In the midst of the tragedy, I was happy to see that there were so many survivors and a relatively limited number of casualties. That said, to those who did perish, R.I.P.
As several have said, what a rough and war-torn part of the world. If this was in fact a missle, then there would likely be two questions: Who fired it, and was it intentional or accidental. Multiple threat actors (including Iran) are in the area (not to mention that just about anyone could have had assets in the Caspian Sea). As for intent, friendly fire can happen to anyone, the US just shot down their own F/A-18, and it’s said that they almost shot down a second.
@ raphael
112 is a reference to the russian breaking news telegram channel, a watermark for the videos first published there
https://t.me/s/ENews112
More broadly, 112 is the emergency phone number, similar to 911 in the US