Azerbaijan Airlines flight carrying 67 people crashes in Kazakhstan

[IRstuff]

Plane crash in Kazakhstan killed dozens, but nearly half of those on board survived, officials say

Mobile phone footage circulating online appeared to show the Azerbaijani Airlines plane making a steep descent before slamming into the ground in a fireball in western Kazakhstan.

www.cbsnews.com

About half onboard survived the crash, currently believed to be caused by a bird strike

 

[RedSnake]

Well this is Dmitry Yadrov, head of Rosaviatsiya the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency.

This is typically for the way Russians handles things like this typical Russian propaganda trying divert the blame to someone else.
If they had thought it was in anyway possible to blame someone outside Russia for it they would but this time they cant since if they did they would at the same time be saying we have no control over our own territory, which would be unthinkable for the largest and strongest country in the world.

 

[LittleInch]

It took a 7 hour and 50 minute video to convince you of that?

The next series of questions are going to revolve around whodunnit. Russia obviously has a history of shooting down commercial airliners and early sources are saying Russia but that doesn't mean anything because everything gets blamed on Russia nowadays.

Russia has some of the most advanced SAM systems capable of shooting down modern fighter jets and this one barley nicks a commercial airliner with the precision of WW2 flak. The haphazard distribution of shrapnel size and patterns may indicate a less sophisticated system.

Well it sounds like it was an anti drone weapon which only needs to supply large amounts of shrapnel to disable them and basically many hundreds of simple rockets or similar to explode in a "carpet" indiscriminate fashion.

Not sure how much damage it caused but the plane flew a long way. Looked a bit like they ran out of hydraulic oil as the plane was porpoising and seemed to roll uncontrollably or maybe only one set of flaps worked, which has happened before. When you see the crash it's amazing anyone survived, presumably all those in the test section which got ripped off.

 

[RedSnake]

I wonder if more had made it, if they had tried to land it in the water.
Maybe things didn't go bad until they came in on land though.
I assume more hydraulic fluid would be lost if there where a leakage when they started to maneuver flaps and things to descend compared with just flying straight on the same altitude.
The leakage might have been in a place where it didn't leak until they maneuvered that particular cylinder for instance.

 

[TugboatEng]

Remember, Iran's military operates independently from its government and religious battles transcend states.

 

[RedSnake]

As I said, more admission than this you will never get from the Russians.

"Vladimir Putin apologized for the fact that the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace and once again expressed his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to the injured," the Kremlin said in a statement

The Kremlin noted that the Azerbaijani plane attempted to land at the Grozny airport several times. "At that time, Grozny, Mozdok and Vladikavkaz were attacked by Ukrainian combat unmanned aerial vehicles, and Russian air defense systems repelled these attacks," the statement said.

 

[TugboatEng]

Grozny is 1000km from Ukraine. Do they have drones with that kind of reach?

 

[RedSnake]

You need to keep up Tug.
Ukraine have drones that can travel to Murmansk that's twice the distance.
Missiles to that can reach this area and sea drones that can launch drones.
There are many types of drones, here we are talking about small aeroplanes not quadcopters.

 

[TugboatEng]

I see that Ukraine is threatening Russia with drones or such range but that doesn't mean they're using them.

Ukraine warns Russia of 1200-mile strike range of attack drones

Andrii Yusov of Ukraine's Defense Intelligence said that Kyiv is increasing the range of its unmanned aerial vehicles.

www.newsweek.com

 

[RedSnake]

They have been hitting Russia both Murmansk, Moscow and several other places in Russia with there own drones for more than 1,5 year.
Ukraine are not afraid to hit oil refineries, military factories/facilities, airports in Russia.
So it's not a warning as newsweek writes, Ukraine are just telling them that they will.

It must be at least the fifth time they have targeted that area in Chechnya Grozny , at least twice they have hit the Kadyrov military regiment and office.

 

[IRstuff]

Seems a bit crazy that a plane supposedly hit by missile would divert to an airport 200 miles away, particularly given the two allegedly missed landings at Grozny.

And if the missile was trying to hit the airplane, it did a crap job of that.

 

[3DDave]

Were I to get shot at I probably would drive far away. I think it was explosive ammunition rather than a missile, based on the reports that there were three separate impact events.

 

[RedSnake]

Seems a bit crazy that a plane supposedly hit by missile would divert to an airport 200 miles away, particularly given the two allegedly missed landings at Grozny.

Well that is Russia for you, they couldn't care less.
They claim they implemented the carpet plan but that is a after construction.

 

[human909]

And if the missile was trying to hit the airplane, it did a crap job of that.

Most air to air missiles do not "try to hit the airplane". That isn't how they work. They are designed to explode in the vicinity sending shrapnel into it. That ensures a much higher it probability. It seems to have achieved its role (and remember a commercial aircraft is much larger and has more redundancies than a military fighter). Unfortunately it seems to have managed to take out 3 hydraulic systems that controlled the tails control surfaces.

Oh and I was meaning to add. It isn't 100% clear that it was a missile. Most reports indicate that the attacking system was a Pantsir system which also incorporates a 30mm cannon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantsir_missile_system

 

[IRstuff]

Most air to air missiles do not "try to hit the airplane". That isn't how they work. They are designed to explode in the vicinity sending shrapnel into it.

Then it still did a crap job. The plane made two attempts to land and then flew over over 200 miles before it finally crashed.

 

[RedSnake]

Well as I and someone else said before, I don't think it was the 57E missile that trows out rods that was used but the 2A38M 30 mm (1.2 in) autocannon gun that the Pantsir-S1 also have.

It would be quite wasteful to use 57E missiles to take out smaller drones, the 30 mm with HE (High Explosive) fragmentation or fragmentation tracer ammunition would work good enough.

 

[human909]

Then it still did a crap job. The plane made two attempts to land and then flew over over 200 miles before it finally crashed.

For someone who is an aerospace engineer you don't seem to being able to comprehend the scenario very well.

This basic relevant information is all relatively able to be searched and found on the internet. The weapons systems used and the reasons why it could fly 200 miles before crashing. (engines were fine, it could fly as far as the fuel would allow, the problem was the severe damage to the tail.) Flying a plane becomes much more difficult when you can't easily control your pitch (and I believe yaw was lost too). But the Pilots performed well, but landing was the challenging part.

I'm surprised I have to explain this to an aerospace engineer with 44,000 posts on Eng-Tips.

 

[TugboatEng]

The holes in the fuselage pass straight through from starboard to port, not bottom to top. They are also very inconsistent in size. This should rule out any type of direct gunfire. This was a proximity burst.

 

[RedSnake]

he holes in the fuselage pass straight through from starboard to port, not bottom to top.

Not sure where you got that info?

The stabilizer where hit down up. This is the upper side of it and whatever hit it went out here.



the fuselage most probably too since the lifewest had a hole in it and they are usually under the chair.
The hole in the picture too have most likely been made with a hit in upward angle from the ground.


I think you assume that the plane was hit on a high altitude but one of the surviving witness says it was hit when they tried to land the third time.
It would not be impossible to hit like this on a plane on a low altitude standing far from it.

 

[RedSnake]

I would even say that the muzzle was aimed at the tail of the plane on the right side of the plane when the plane flow over it away from the muzzle.

Because the holes on the upper side of the stabilizer is outgoing and the the ones on the tail are incoming and the stabilizer protected the rudder/horizontal stabilizer of the tail from the hit.
That's why there is almost no holes in that area.

 

[TugboatEng]

The red arrow in your picture is showing entrance holes. Here are exit holes on the other side.