Harrowing footage of the Azerbaijan Airlines that crashed and killed 38 people on Christmas morning shows suspicious holes in the fuselage.
Sources from local media outlets are now speculating that perhaps the plane was shot down by Russians.
The flight was coming from Azerbaijan’s capital city of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny and it crashed with 67 passengers and five crew members on board near Aktau which is the western part of Kazakhstan during the morning hours.
As per reports from Flight Radar 24, it was flying over the Republic of Dagestan along the Caspian Sea coast. After that, it disappeared from tracking. This suggests that it was exposed to air defense systems present in Russia.
It then showed up nearly one hour later off course and flew low above the water near the western part of Kazakhstan before it crashed.
Before the crash, the crew rolled out reports about a strong impact on the hull. They assumed the aircraft hit a flock of birds but later it was reported that it was an explosion of the oxygen tank that was used to supply air to the cockpit in the event of depressurization.
This sudden change in pressure of the cylinder caused serious damage to the hull and led to it shattering into fragments.
But now, new footage shows gaping holes in the side of the wreckage which raises more questions about whether or not birds or an exploded oxygen tank could have downed the plane.
Suggestions are on the rise that Russian air defenses might have caused this crash as ‘it didn’t seem like birds’ were capable of this destruction.