Well, this wouldn’t be the first commercial airliner that Putin has shot down.
The Russian government has cautioned against promoting “hypotheses” about the cause of the crash of a Russia-bound passenger plane that killed 38 people in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
Some aviation experts suggested that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane had been hit by air defence systems over the Russian republic of Chechnya and pro-government media in Azerbaijan quote officials as saying a Russian missile was responsible.
Before it went down near the Kazakh city of Aktau, the plane was diverted across the Caspian Sea, from its destination in Chechnya to western Kazakhstan.
Twenty nine of the 67 people on board survived. Azerbaijan held a national day of mourning on Thursday for the victims of the crash.
If the earlyreports are true that the E-190 had already shot two missed approaches at Grozny due to weather, then they were under positive control of ATC within the terminal environment. They were identified air traffic and where they were supposed to be. Missed approach procedures are published, ffs. Headings, altitudes, turns, radio frequencies, etc.
This is a bigger Russian fuck up than most. One glaring observation is that apparently their civilian ATC and military defense systems are not fully integrated… if integrated at all. Another is that their defense units don’t monitor civilian aviation UHF/VHF radio traffic. Or the weather within their areas of operation. Russia has vaguely acknowledged the mistake, but without admitting that they intentionally launched on an aircraft they had not positively identified. Can’t help but wonder if whoever ordered that launch still has a pulse.