The News
Azerbaijan Airlines on Friday said a preliminary probe found the plane crash that killed 38 people this week was “due to physical and technical external interference” as questions grew over Russia’s potential involvement.
The airplane was flying from Baku to Grozny in southern Russia on Wednesday when it changed course toward Kazakhstan to attempt an emergency landing, authorities said.
Baku government sources told Euronews that early investigations showed the aircraft was struck by a Russian air-defense missile. Reuters reported a source as saying: “No one claims that it was done on purpose. However, taking into account the established facts, Baku expects the Russian side to confess to the shooting down of the Azerbaijani aircraft.”
Azerbaijani investigators also announced on Friday that flights have been suspended to several Russian airports.
Moscow officials warned against “hypotheses” and pointed to a bird strike, while experts cautioned more information is needed to definitively say what caused the crash.
SIGNALS
Missiles have become the biggest danger for airplanes worldwide
If Wednesday’s crash is confirmed to have occurred due to an air-defense missile, it would mark the third major downing of an airplane since 2014 due to armed conflict, making shootdowns the largest cause of fatalities on commercial airlines over the past 10 years, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Yet little progress has been made on creating standardized rules for operating commercial flights in war zones, and airlines can struggle to balance safety risk calculations with the costs of canceling flights or taking longer flight paths. One country that has taken steps to improve safety is Israel, whose air-traffic control tracks incoming missiles, and has told airlines to carry more fuel in case they need to be put in a holding pattern due to rocket fire, The Economist reported.
Russia suspected of disrupting Europe’s airspace
Russia has been widely accused of jamming GPS systems in large parts of Eastern and Northern Europe, disrupting flights and marine transport. While airlines have alternatives to GPS for navigation, the interference “inevitably reduces the safety and efficiency of aviation,” one expert told El País. Western officials and experts believe the disruption is coming from Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave next to Poland, although European officials are divided about whether the interference is intentional. While Estonia has called the jamming a “hybrid attack,” Finnish authorities said it was most likely “a side effect of Russia’s self-protection” to stop GPS-guided drones.
Western sanctions are crippling Russia’s airlines
Sanctions have hit Russia’s aviation sector hard, preventing Moscow from accessing spare parts for its commercial fleet that consists primarily of Western-made planes. Russia has started cannibalizing some of the existing fleet to keep planes flying and is attempting to make its own parts. “The risks have increased dramatically,” the head of a Russian aviation think tank wrote, adding that the industry is spending a lot of resources to compensate for the sanctions. “You can extend whatever you want, but you cannot extend the laws of physics,” one Russian aviation safety expert told The Washington Post, warning that planes are being used well beyond their serviceable life.