What happed to Azerbaijan Airlines flight AHY8243 which crashed near Aktau?

An Embraer 190 aircraft operating flight AHY8243 out of Baku (Azerbaijan) to Grozny (Chechnya, Russia) crashed at December 25, 2024 near the airport of Aktau in Kazahkstan. Details at avherald. A very good analysis by Denys Davydov is here.

The aircraft was extremely likely hit by shrapnel of a surface to air missile which hit the aircraft of the lefthand side. Very likely when the aircraft was landing at Grozny. There are many questions to be answered. Like why did the aircraft not land at Grozny or a much closer airport than Aktau?

On the morning of December 25, an Ukraine drone was shot down by a Pantsir anti-aircraft system. Shali is a city southeast of Grozny

Euronews reported

Other Russian military bloggers have made claims that the said explosion happened over the Naursky District of Chechnya, where several Russian military units are posted, including those with air defence systems, basing their conclusions on open-source data.

That makes sense as this area is located north east of the airport. The aircraft was hit on the lefthand side. So likely the aircraft was flying east again after turning to the right twice after the missed approach.

It was initially reported the aircraft diverted to Aktau because of fog at Grozny airport. That cannot be the case. The visibility at the airport was over 3.000 meters and within the standards of the aircraft. One of the passengers who survived the crash stated (source BBC):

he believed the pilot had tried twice to land in dense fog over Grozny before “the third time, something exploded… some of the aircraft skin had blown out”.

Grozny 04:30 UTC overcast 700 ft AGL
URMG 250430Z 26001MPS 3600 BR OVC007 03/02 Q1025 R26/290250 NOSIG RMK MT OBSC OBST OBSC QFE754/1005

The flightplan had two alternates: First alternate was UBBB (Baku) and the second UBBG (Ganja). Both airports are in Azerbaijan.

The reason why the crew decided to divert to Aktau is probably because the terrain is more suited to make an emergency landing without having controls. Baku airport is surrounded by houses as it is in the middle of the city.

Azerbaijan Airlines stopped flying to Grozny and Makhachkala until further notice. Both are airport in Chechnya.

On Internet someone posted the communications between the pilot and ATC. This could be faked but whoever made this had good knowledge of procedures.

One of the theories why the Azerbaijan Airlines flight wanted to divert back to Baku is because ATC said Grozny airport was closed. At the same time of the aircraft landing drones from Ukraine were flying over Grozny. It could well be all aircraft were ordered to leave the airspace so the air defense knew any blimb on their radarscreen was an enemy drone.

Sky News is reporting the aircraft wasn’t allowed to land at any Russian airport and was ordered to fly towards Aktau.

Timeline (times in UTC. Grozny local time is UTC + 3 hours)

03:55 departure from Baku to Grozny (~1 hr flight time, so expected landing around 04:55)
04:40 8950 ft (probably descending to Grozny, location unreliable due to GPS spoofing)
gap in FR24 data. Position neat Machatsjkala.

Around 05:00 the aircraft should be touching runway 26.
06:07 3525 ft (about 2/3 across Caspian Sea, wild fluctuations in altitude and speed)
06:28 crashed near Aqtau

The unverified ATC-communication . Based on the time and the headings given by ATC the aircraft performed a missed approach of runway 26 and was heading 260. Based on the time the aircraft could be at Grozny airport (around 08:00 local time) the times below indicated there was just a single attempt to land. 5 minutes after the missed approach at Grozny the pilot reported the aircraft could not be controlled.

The last communication is at 05:27 UTC time. The flighttime from Grozny to Aktau is around 33 minutes. Flightradar picked the aircraft up west of Aktau at 06:08 UTC. So likely the crew decided to divert to Aktau pretty soon after talking to Grozny ATC.

08:11:50
e: AXY8243 proceeding to Baku.

08:11:58
d: AXY8243 with current heading, climb to 900 m
e: With current heading, climb to 900 m AXY8243

08:12:12
d: AXY8243 confirm, are you diverting to Baku as an alternate?
e: Confirm, we’re leaving for Baku, backup AXY8243

08:12:29
d: AXY8243 First dial  FL80 , and tell me if you can head straight to Pinta?
e: Dial  FL80 , we’ll tell you now AXY8243

08:12:48
e: AXY8243 Both GPS’s are lost, we need vectoring.
d: AXY8243 Got it, right course 360.
e: Right course 360 ​​AXY8243 Thank you.

08:14:15
d: AXY8243 dial FL150
u: Dial  FL150 (inaudible) AXY8243
d: AXY8243 and speed up dialing
u: Speeding up dialing AXY8243
…..
08:16:05
u: ​​Our controls have failed, bird strike in the cabin. Bird strike in the cabin (inaudible)

08:16:16
d: AXY8243 Got it, what kind of assistance do you need?

08:16:41
u: What’s the weather like in Mineralnye Vody, please assist.
d: AXY8243 at 16 minutes.
u: I don’t understand
d: AXY8243 at 16 minutes.
u: At what minute?
d: AXY8243 repeat your message, I can’t hear you well.

08:17:15
d: AXY8243 is it okay?
e: All right, proceeding to Mineralnye Vody.
d: AXY8243 copy, proceed on current heading until command.
e: Understood, proceed on current heading until command. Please, request bad weather Mineralnye Vody.
d: AXY8243 hold, climb to FL150 .
e: Climbing to FL150 .

08:18:29
d: AXY8243 execute left orbit.
e: Cannot execute, control is lost. Give us vectoring to Mineralnye Vody, and please give us weather Mineralnye Vody.
d: AXY8243 copy, hold. Left heading 030
e: Left heading 030

08:19:12
e: I can’t maintain 150, we have increased cabin pressure
d: AXY8243 copy.

08:20:27
d: AXY8243 left heading 360
e: Left 360, my airplane is losing control.

d: AXY8243 for information weather Min-Vody: wind 120g, 6 m/s, visibility over 10 km, solid cloud cover base 180m, QNH1024hPa, band 11 in operation
e: Give us Makhachkala.

08:21:20
e: And Makhachkala.
d: AXY8243 decided to proceed to Makhachkala?
e: Yes sir, give me the weather forecast for Makhachkala.
d: AXY8243 stand by.

08:22:12
d: AXY8243 turn right course 110.
d: AXY8243 Grozny Tower.
e: On reception
d: AXY8243 turn right course 140.

08:22:57
e: Now the hydraulics have failed

08:23:03
d AXY8243 Grozny Tower.
e: On reception, we have a hydraulic failure.
d: AXY8243 roger. Can you follow the courses?
e: No, we can’t. Give us a specific course, we’ll go to Makhachkala.
d: AXY8243 left course 100, correction to the right course 100.
e: Right course 100. Makhachkala weather.

08:23:42
d: AXY8243 Makhachkala weather: wind 310 deg 2 m/s, visibility 3300, lower edge 750m, haze QNH1026hPa, runway in operation 32
e: Roger

08:24:26
d: AXY8243 confirm, have you declared a distress signal?
e: (Inaudible) did not understand (inaudible)

08:24:43
e: AXY8243 repeat.
d: AXY8243 is the aircraft okay?
e: The aircraft is okay.

08:24:55
e: Allow us to (inaudible)
d: AXY8243 repeat
e: (inaudible)

08:25:09
d: AXY8243 you are unintelligible, repeat your message.
e: (inaudible)

08:25:30
e: AXY8243 how was the reception? On reception
d: AXY8243 Grozny Tower receiving, we can hear you very poorly.
e: (inaudible)

08:25:47
e: AXY8243 permission to proceed at this altitude.
d: AXY8243 I do not see you on the control tower this morning, please advise your altitude.

08:26:10
E: Our altitude is 80
D: AXY8243 try to reach FL100
E: If we can.

08:27:00
D: AXY8243 Grozny Tower
E: On reception AXY8243
D: AXY8243 work Rostov Control 134.1
E: Rostov Control 134.1 AXY8243

Then the crew of the flight “Baku-Grozny” negotiated with the controller from Rostov.

The map below shows the Standard Instrument Departure (SID) named PINTA. After departure at runway 26, the aircraft turns right heading 015 then right heading 071 towards waypoint PINTA