The haunting final words spoken by the pilot of the doomed Azerbaijan Airlines plane before the plane went down have been revealed.
The plane crashed on Wednesday, Dec. 25, and evidence was piling up that Russian air defenses hit the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane which crashed killing 38 people.
The Embraer jet was likely wrongly targeted as a suspected Ukrainian drone by a Pantsir-S1 surface-to-air missile shot from the Naursky district of Chechnya.
The apparent shrapnel damage to the aircraft - seen on the intact rear section of the doomed aircraft at Aktau in Kazakhstan - is consistent with such a strike. So are the accounts of surviving passengers who spoke of an explosion outside the plane.
At the time the plane had been seeking to land as scheduled in Grozny in Chechnya, a Russian region headed by close Vladimir Putin warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov, which has been under regular attacks from Ukraine in recent weeks. It is Kadyrov’s forces who are suspected of firing a Pantsir-S1 at the plane.
A partial text release of the alleged communications between the pilots and air traffic control indicates a catastrophic event that the crew wrongly assumed to be a collision with a flock of birds.
Struggling to control the plane with 67 people on board, the pilots help to go to several different airports in three countries, Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
At 8:12 a.m., the crew reported “both GPS lost” on the Embraer E190AR, and sought help with “vectoring” to head back to the take-off airport Baku, evidently after the sudden closure of Grozny airport.
At 8:16, one of the pilots said: “We have control failure, bird strike in the cockpit. Bird strike in the cockpit (inaudible)…”
Ground control replied: “AXY8243 I understand you, what kind of help do you need?”
The captain indicated he was seeking to return to his home airport Baku. But at 8:17, the pilot announced he was “heading to Mineralnye Vody” - an airport in southern Russia.
Ground control tells him to “perform left orbit” - but the flight deck replies: “I can't execute, control is lost.” At 8:19, one of the pilots states: “I can't maintain 150, we have high pressure in the cabin.”
Ground control reply: “AXY8243 understood you.”
One minute later, at 8:20, the flight’s scheduled arrival time, the pilot says: “Left 360, my plane is losing control.”
At 8:21, according to the leaked transcript, the crew decided instead to make for Makhachkala, a Russian airport on the Caspian Sea.
At 8:22, the crew reported: “Now the hydraulics have failed.”
Two minutes later, the pilot appears to deny he has declared a “distress” on board and tells ground control: “The board [plane] is in order.” But the air traffic controller then cannot properly hear the crew.
“You are very hard to hear…. tell me your altitude.” The plane later disappeared from radar for 37 minutes before reappearing as it sought to land in Aktau.
Russian Telegram channel VChK-OGPU - close to the security services - said air defense teams loyal to Chechen leader Kadyrov in Naursky district likely attacked the plane.
“The pilot mistook the strong blow to the plane for a collision with a flock of birds.” Said the channel.
“In reality, the damage indicates that, most likely, a missile fired by air defence systems exploded near the plane. According to the materials we have obtained, that very strike occurred approximately 18 kilometres [11 miles] north, northwest of the airport in Grozny, over the Naursky district at an altitude of 2,400 metres [7,875ft].”
The channel reported: “According to information from open sources, several military units are located in this area, including those with air defence systems…It is known that after the recent [Ukrainian] UAV attacks, several Pantsirs were also deployed in Chechnya.”
It was reported today that Kazakhstan has refused Russia permission to join the investigation examining the crash. Azerbaijan was also refused.
“This way we will have all the facts, the black box and the evidence,” said a member of the Kazakhstan investigation commission. Independent investigative journalists from the Volya Telegram channel said the drone left coincided in Grozny with the plane’s expected arrival.
“The Pantsirs began shooting down everything that was in the air at that moment. Grozny airport was closed for flights….
“But the passenger plane was already landing, which [air traffic control] prohibited at the last moment. The crew, according to the passengers, made two more attempts to land, after the last of which something exploded near the plane.
“The damaged Embraer was prohibited from landing in Grozny and tried to reach the airport in Aktau, Kazakhstan, but crashed nearby. The crew did everything possible not to crash the plane, but to land it.”
The outlet made clear that “Traces of shrapnel damage are visible on the fuselage and vertical stabiliser (keel)” of the jet. The closure of airports due to drone or missile threats is called a “carpet plan” in Russia.
“Everyone switched on the mode which can be described as ‘Work according to the instructions’. The instructions don’t say to turn on your brain’.”
The outlet said: “Russian propagandists are trying to spread the version that the plane collided with a Ukrainian drone.”
But this is implausible.
“A collision with an attack UAV would not have left shrapnel holes in a civilian airliner, but would have led to the destruction and fall of the aircraft immediately after the impact. Drones do not explode near the target, they explode upon impact with the target.”
A special aircraft of the Russian Emergencies Ministry has flown nine Russians, including one child, injured in yesterday's plane crash to Moscow for treatment.
By this morning, war fanatic Kadyrov had not spoken about the horrific plane crash from which there were 29 survivors.
His nephew Khamzat Kadyrov, secretary of the Chechen Security Council, wrote on his Instagram that “everything was shot down” and published a video in which a drone is seen exploding.
