Azerbaijan Airlines Crash

[Bugkiller99]

An Azerbaijan Airlines flight crashed, latest count is 38 dead. Russian officials are initially saying it was a bird strike.

Well, I’ll paraphrase Paul Harvey, and I’ll wait for the rest of the story. But I’ll be surprised if it was a “Bird strike”.

 

[Hair Trigger]

Looks like a surface to air missile. Blancolirio has a good preliminary report on it. Proximity explosion peppered the rear of the plane, depressurized the cabin and hit enough of the hydraulic systems to disable controls. The pilots did a helluva job trying to control the plane and land, but failed in the end. Something like 22 of the 80-some passengers survived.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J04wUKZUCI[/ame]

 

[Rudi]

WOW! Nothing like throwing fuel on the fire. We'll know more tomorrow.

 

[LVSteve]

Assuming that is SAM damage, it must have been something fairly small. Either that or the missile nearly missed altogether. The show about the KLM airliner that got shot down over eastern Ukraine suffered way more damage from an SA-11.

 

[Pisgah]

Russia has now stated it was a missile fired from one of their units after the plane entered a posted no-fly zone at the same time Ukraine began an attack.

 

[biku324]

From scene photos it appears those were some pretty tough birds if it was a bird strike - unless the birds were Buks.

 

[dockmurgw]

Reminds me of a line from a movie...this was not a boat accident.

 

[Telecaster]

Now they can sell airliner model kits like this.

 

[Hair Trigger]

Assuming that is SAM damage, it must have been something fairly small. Either that or the missile nearly missed altogether. The show about the KLM airliner that got shot down over eastern Ukraine suffered way more damage from an SA-11.

Some missiles are contact detonated, some are proximity fused, like the SA-11. I'm not up on antiaircraft munitions, but the damage done to this plane was certainly enough to bring it down. It appears the warhead on this missile was something like an airborne Claymore, it explodes and slings shrapnel. All the shrapnel has to do is hit something vital. Some of the video has images from inside the cabin showing shrapnel damage to a seatback. It's hard to say where the missile was relative to the plane when it exploded, as the airplane broke in two on impact, the wings and forward half of the fuselage were destroyed in the fireball. The rear half is all that was relatively intact, and is where all the survivors were seated. The only place on the plane where you could see damage was the tail section. It will be interesting to read followup analysis.

 

[margethatcher]

It BlackRock's and (America's) fault for starting this insane war in the first place

 

[biku324]

The Russian air defense system is the only one in range of Grozny, which is several hundred miles SE of the closest Ukranian air defense site in Southern Ukraine.

France-based outlet Euronews reported on Thursday that a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the crash, citing unnamed Azerbaijani government sources who reportedly said the missile was fired during drone activity above Chechnya's capital. The missile exploded next to the aircraft during its flight, and shrapnel struck the people onboard, according to the report.

Did Russia Shoot Down Azeri Plane That Crashed in Kazakhstan? What We Know - Newsweek

 

[Rudi]

Somebody may be called to Moskva for a brief mtg.