Kazakh preliminary report on jet crash backs Azerbaijani assertions of accidental Russian shoot-down

https://eurasianet.org/

The preliminary report into the late December crash of an Azerbaijani passenger jet in Kazakhstan is a masterwork in delicate diplomacy, breaking no new ground in assigning responsibility for the tragedy, yet appearing to confirm that the plane was accidentally shot down by Russian air defenses without explicitly saying so. As such, the Kazakh-produced report has avoided, at least initially, provoking the ire of either Russia or Azerbaijan.

Kazakh officials released the report February 4, stating the 53-parge document “does not purport to assign blame or responsibility to anyone” for the incident, in which an Azerbaijani flight bound for Grozny in Chechnya is widely believed to have been hit by anti-aircraft fire before making a crash landing near the Kazakh city of Aktau, killing 38 of the 67 individuals aboard. 

The report goes on to confirm various facts that have already been reported, including that the plane’s engines, hydraulic operating systems and GPS apparatus were in sound working order before take-off. It also notes the plane was not overloaded.

Kazakh investigators firmly establish that the damage done to the plane originated “from the outside by foreign metal objects,” thus dismissing the possibility of a bird strike or an internal explosion caused by a gas canister. The damage caused the pilots to lose control over most operating systems, while the plane’s GPS systems were reportedly jammed by ground-based air defenses.

The report contains photos of the plane’s tail section and fuselage speckled with “holes of various sizes and shapes,” but does not provide any information on what caused the perforations.  Several apparently foreign metal objects have been recovered from the jet and are reportedly still undergoing analysis, according to the report. The visual evidence, however, shows damage that is consistent with that caused by anti-aircraft shrapnel.

Around the time of the accidental shoot-down, Grozny, the flight’s intended destination, came under a Ukrainian drone attack.  The Azerbaijani plane began experiencing difficulties in Chechen airspace after being hit by the “foreign metal objects” at 5:13 am on December 25, according to the report, while the order to close airspace to civilian traffic wasn’t issued until eight minutes later. Given the distance from Ukraine, the radar capabilities of Russian air defenses and the relatively slow speed that drones tend to fly at, the lag-time in issuing the closure of airspace order is potentially an indicator of negligence or another shortcoming at some point in the Russian system.

The crash has strained Azerbaijan’s relations with Russia: Baku has demanded that the Kremlin admit responsibility and pay reparations to the relatives of those killed. Russian leader Vladimir Putin has so far declined to do so.

The Kazakh preliminary report generally aligns with the Azerbaijan’s long held version of events that Chechen air defense forces accidentally shot down the jet. Accordingly, the initial Azerbaijani reaction to the report has been restrained, neither lauding nor criticizing the contents. However, the Reuters news agency quoted a “source” in Baku that Azerbaijani authorities possessed evidenced that at least one fragment of a Pantsir-S missile system had been recovered from the plane and positively identified.

Meanwhile, Russian officials have tried to put as positive a spin as possible on the report, with a statement issued by the Russian Federal Transport Agency on Telegram highlighting that it “doesn’t contain conclusions about the causes of the incident.” The statement also tacitly airs a complaint that Russian investigators were not given access to the metal fragments found in the plane’s fuselage. 

At the same time, state-controlled Russian media let loose a massive disinformation dump, regurgitating discredited alternative theories for the crash.

A story published by the Interfax news agency leads with quotes from the report about “noise impact” and a “collision with birds.” A piece distributed by the official TASS news agency blatantly distorts the report’s contents, referring to the bird strike and gas canister theories without mentioning “foreign metal objects.” Gazeta.ru’s headline falsely asserts that “both GPSs of the AZAL plane were out of order.” And an item in Vechernyaya Moskva attributes the tragedy outright to a bird strike and circulates a conspiracy theory that the data from the doomed plane’s recovered black boxes has been altered.

The final report is due to be completed in early 2026.