The Azerbaijani Airlines plane that crashed on Dec. 25 en route to Russia may have been shot down by a Russian surface-to-air missile, according to reports from independent Russian media outlets.
The aircraft, carrying passengers from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Grozny in Russia’s Chechen Republic, crashed near the coastal city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.
Passenger video from inside the aircraft showed signs of shrapnel damage, and a woman passenger suffered a leg wound.
Surviving passengers said that on the third attempt to land in Grozny, there were some explosions outside the aircraft and that the flight was then diverted across the Caspian to Aktau in Kazakhstan.
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Centre for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine announced that: “This morning, an Embraer 190 aircraft of the Azerbaijani airline flying from Baku to Grozny was shot down by a Russian air defense system. Russia was supposed to close the airspace over Grozny, but did not do so. The plane was damaged by the Russians and was sent to Kazakhstan instead of being urgently landed in Grozny and saving lives.”
Grozny has been the target of a number of retaliatory Ukrainian drone attacks in recent weeks, and it was flight J2-8243’s misfortune to arrive at Grozny shortly after such an attack. It seems that Russian air defences mistook the Embraer for a Ukrainian drone, and engaged it with unidentified systems.
An international team of investigators said it found “strong indications” that Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the supply of heavy anti-aircraft weapons to Russia backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine who shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014 with a Russian missile.
Russia has always denied any involvement in the downing of the flight over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, and refused to cooperate with the international investigation.
How do Russian airlines continue to fly after two years under sanctions? —is simple: because they have a long history of participating in the international aviation market,
Anastasia Dagaeva of Wilson Center wrote.
Which airlines can fly over Russia?
Following the introduction of sanctions, Russia closed its airspace to most airlines.
Only four European carriers are exempt due to their diplomatic ties with Moscow. These are Air Serbia, Turkish Airlines, Pegasus Airlines and Belavia.
Turkish Airlines flies to seven airports in Russia while Air Serbia continues to serve Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan and Sochi.
China has the largest number of airlines using Russian airspace. Beijing Capital Airlines, China Eastern, China Southern, Air China, Xiamen Air and Hainan Airlines fly over Russia to reach many destinations in Western Europe.
Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways are also still operating in Russian airspace.
U.S. Embassy staff generally are not allowed to fly on Russian airlines due to safety concerns. Recently, the FAA downgraded Russia’s air safety rating from Category 1 to Category 2. Additionally, the FAA banned U.S. flights in some Russian areas, including the Moscow Flight Information Region (FIR), the Samara FIR (UWWW), and the Rostov-na-Donu (URRV) FIR within 160NM of the boundaries of the Dnipro (UKDV) Flight Information Regions. Check the FAA’s Prohibitions, Restrictions, and Notices for more information.
According to a 2015 analysis by Time magazine of 35 years of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data, seats in the back third of the aircraft had a fatality rate of 32 percent, whereas those in the middle third had a fatality rate of 39 percent and the ones in the front third had a fatality rate of 38 percent. Even more specifically, the middle seats in the back of the aircraft are statistically the safest, with just a 28 percent fatality rate. By comparison, aisle seats in the middle of the cabin had a fatality rate of 44 percent.
But remember, these are just overall odds based on previous plane accidents — and there have been outliers. For example, when United Airlines Flight 232 crashed in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989, most of the 184 survivors were sitting in the middle third of the plane. In the 1977 Tenerife disaster — aviation’s deadliest accident, which killed 583 people — the 61 survivors sat mainly in the front of the Pan Am aircraft that was involved in the collision, while all aboard the KLM plane perished.
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