Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbaijan E190tragedy

Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by rodary on Wednesday December 25, 2024 @07:01PM (#42512088)

This is odd.

I'm from the area, near Grozny. If Grozny were under fog, there are at least 10 airports nearby (Makhachkala, Vladikavkaz, Nalchik, Minvody, Rostov, Krasnodar etc) in the North Caucasus. Why would you fly east, across the Caspian Sea, toward Kazakhstan?

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Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by appreciatorBus on Wednesday December 25, 2024 @07:28PM (#42512233)

Obviously just speculation but if one was just fired upon, yet still in one piece and at least somewhat in control, a pilot might decide braving a longer diversion over a body of water to get away from the area, might be the safest course of action.

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Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by dralley on Wednesday December 25, 2024 @10:53PM (#42513007)

Also if you have control issues and a forced depressurization it might be best to avoid obstructions (like the Caucasus mountains) and significant course adjustments.

But from what I'm seeing the actual answer is that they were denied landing clearance, which is a bit suspicious.

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Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by quink on Wednesday December 25, 2024 @07:33PM (#42512268)

If I was a pilot flying into an at-war country I’d want my alternate to point in a different direction, the exact opposite course of the war zone ideally. Which this pretty much is.

And, to further that point, multiple airports you listed here are currently closed because of that war.

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[dead]

Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by IAmGraydon on Wednesday December 25, 2024 @09:44PM (#42512795)

Anyone else notice an influx of these new accounts in the last couple of years that start rapidly spamming inflammatory replies that seem to be trying to incite arguments (look at this ^ account's comments in the last hour)? HN is a bastion of mostly western, intelligent discourse. I'm really starting to wonder - is it under attack?

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Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by refulgentis on Wednesday December 25, 2024 @09:46PM (#42512800)

I see this everywhere. IMHO that is because we've all found vice signaling is lower cost than expected

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Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by IAmGraydon on Wednesday December 25, 2024 @09:53PM (#42512818)

Vice signalizing? Intentionally displaying one's flaws/vices? I really don't think that's what this is. I think this is someone or a bot that is trying to get people to react with anger, in hopes that it catches on and causes wider arguments in the thread/social platform. It's very similar to what foreign influence/disinformation campaigns are doing in western societies, but targeted at online societies.

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Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by dralley on Thursday December 26, 2024 @01:42PM (#42516894)

Has been for a while. Most articles critical of Russia end up getting flagged pretty quickly and also tend to get flooded with posts from accounts created 5 minutes prior.

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Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by selimthegrim on Wednesday December 25, 2024 @10:51PM (#42512999)

Makhachkala has been taking international flights.

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Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by quink on Thursday December 26, 2024 @01:15AM (#42513471)

I just checked the transcript I've seen floating out there, the first alternate was Baku, i.e. their departure airport. Then Mineralnye Vody (which is some way to the west), then Makhachkala, then they seemed to go far to the east, so while I think the first option was Baku - matching what I said, the list of options pretty quickly became 'anywhere'. What a harrowing flight.

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Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by quink on Thursday December 26, 2024 @09:40AM (#42515429)

> The Grozny airport reportedly denied landing permission to the AZAL plane, and the aircraft was also refused permission to land at airports in Makhachkala and Mineralnye Vody.

says media in Azerbaijan now as per https://report.az/en/incident/crashed-azal-plane-shot-down-b...

There you go.

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Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by goodcanadian on Wednesday December 25, 2024 @07:57PM (#42512365)

Grozny was not under fog.

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Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by tiahura on Wednesday December 25, 2024 @07:45PM (#42512314)

Mountains

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Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by phire on Wednesday December 25, 2024 @08:49PM (#42512577)

They reported a dual GPS failure.

My guess, they picked an airport they knew well, that they could probably navigate to with nothing more than a compass and landmarks. And if they suspected GPS jamming (personally, a dual GPS failure over Russia would be my first guess) they would be biased towards an airport far away from an active war zone.

I am curious why they didn't divert back to their departure airport at Baku. It's roughly the same distance and surely they knew that airport even better, and could just follow the coastline back. Maybe by the time they had the plane under control they were already much closer to Aktau.

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Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by Waterluvian on Thursday December 26, 2024 @08:46AM (#42515122)

Any time something makes no sense from this region of the world, there’s often a ridiculous Soviet style decision behind it.

https://bsky.app/profile/dandrezner.bsky.social/post/3le7jr7...

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Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by ivan_gammel on Thursday December 26, 2024 @10:20AM (#42515703)

The entire region was the zone of active air defence and Vladikavkaz was surely not an option given the drone strike that damaged a shopping mall there. My only question here is why there were any civilian flights at the moment. They should have been diverted.

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Re:Air missile accident emerges as probable cause of Azerbai... by rasz on Friday December 27, 2024 @02:04AM (#42520430)

https://caliber.az/en/post/preliminary-investigation-azal-ai...

"Kill and hide. Azerbaijani officials tell local media that Russia hit flight J2-8243 with an anti-aircraft missile and then jammed electronics and _denied permission to land in three airports, steering the damaged plane into the Caspian Sea so that it would crash there and Russia’s role would never be discovered_."

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