The IL-2 that was hit by a Ukrainian SAM system & managed to land afterwards had a very similar damage pattern to this aircraft. You absolutely can fly for hours after an AD hit, if you get lucky.
A proximity fused AD missile with a fragmentation charge will explode to the rear of a large airliner if it’s tail-chasing, resulting in exactly the kind of damage we see in both that IL-2 and this case.
I guess we'll see in a few weeks. Kazakhstan is not Russia, and as far as I can tell access to the site of the crash is being given to the involved parties, including Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan says the cause was "external technical influence", whatever that means. And in any case, there are plenty of survivors, and, therefore, direct witnesses.
> Azerbaijan says the cause was "external technical influence", whatever that means.
It is a glaringly obvious euphemism for a military mishap. I respect your hunger for details before arriving at a conclusion, but there was practically no chance this wasn't a missile strike. If you're familiar with Russia's reluctance to admit failure, this should come as a particularly disappointing inevitability.
- Azerbaijan is de-facto reliant on Russia for military support. They would always wait for Russia's admission before declaring an international incident that could threaten their standing. The initial denial and defense is likely protocol for Russian allies.
- Russia's official excuse of a "bird strike" didn't make sense, since there was spall marks on the fuselage that do not originate from turbine failure. Not only does the wreckage make this obvious, but I don't think hydraulics would fail from an isolated bird strike either.
- The ADS-B data absolutely corroborates a military attack. You can very clearly see a controlled ascent to altitude cut off by a jammed transponder, then again the transponder comes online with an unstable flight path. If one engine was disabled by a bird strike, the plane should still be able to trim itself into stable flight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijan_Airlines_Flight_824...
- Historically, starting in the USSR and continued by the Russian Federation, there has been a tradition of coverups defending military personnel when they make mistakes. It is unbelievably common both in history and in modern news cycles to hear about fabricated coverups that defend Russia's soldiers from criticism and, more importantly, distance Russia from any relations to the harm they've caused.
To be frank, it was foolish to hold out hope that Russia wasn't responsible from the moment they denied it so vehemently. Some nations cry wolf so often that other countries don't even take the time of day from them. If Russia waited to deliver a truthful response or launched an investigation to correct the source of the error, then there would be a lot less scrutiny and eyerolling from the international community right now. The desperate scramble to cover up an accident of this magnitude is an utter embarrassment for Russia, especially considering how few people were willing to trust the official (and obviously incomplete) Azerbaijan/Russian response. It is disrespectful to the families that deserve an answer with accountability, and another notch in the belt of reasons why we don't take Russian press releases seriously.
A proximity fused AD missile with a fragmentation charge will explode to the rear of a large airliner if it’s tail-chasing, resulting in exactly the kind of damage we see in both that IL-2 and this case.