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What Azerbaijan said about the Aktau crash
Summary
A look back at 26 December 2024, when Azerbaijani officials pointed to a Russian missile system, a day after Russian strikes hit Ukrainian energy sites.
What did officials in Baku say caused the plane crash that killed 38 people? On 26 December 2024, Azerbaijani government officials told Reuters that a Russian military surface-to-air missile, launched from a Pantsir-S system, was responsible for the crash of Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 the previous day.
The officials also said the aircraft's GPS navigation system had been jammed during the flight.
The flight
The flight was a scheduled service from Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku to Grozny in Russia. The Embraer E190 was severely damaged on 25 December 2024 as it approached Grozny. The pilots tried to divert, but the hydraulic system failed, leading to a loss of control. The aircraft crashed near Aktau International Airport in Aktau, Kazakhstan.
There were 62 passengers and five crew on board, 67 people in all. Of those, 38 died, including both pilots and a flight attendant. Twenty-nine people survived with injuries.
Strikes on Ukraine
The same period brought another security story. On 25 December 2024, a series of Russian ballistic missile and drone strikes targeted critical energy infrastructure in cities across Ukraine. At least two people were killed and 20 others injured, and the attacks caused widespread emergency blackouts.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin over the attacks, calling them inhumane. The strikes formed part of a wider pattern of winter attacks on electricity and district heating that fed the Ukrainian energy crisis during the war.
Why the day mattered
The account given to Reuters on 26 December 2024 attributed the downing of a civilian airliner to a Russian air-defence system, and added the detail of GPS jamming. Together with the Ukrainian blackouts, it left the final week of the year dominated by security incidents linked to Russia's war and its effects across the region.
