Kazakh expert: Criminal negligence caused AZAL plane crash

The crash of the AZAL aircraft near Aktau, Kazakhstan, was caused by criminal negligence of military services that failed to issue an order to close the airspace over the destination point for civilian aircraft, Kazakh political scientist Talgat Kaliyev told Report.

According to Kaliyev, information about the implementation of the "Kovyor" plan, which means activation of Air Defense Forces during an air attack threat, was provided after the AZAL aircraft had already lost control.

"The crash of the AZAL aircraft on December 25 and the tragic death of citizens from three countries is the result of criminal negligence by technical services that should have been in coordination with each other," he said.

"This concerns ground services and military air defense services, which were supposed to act in coordination. The military was supposed to give timely warning about the start of Operation 'Kovyor' and close the airspace to civilian aircraft, thus avoiding civilian casualties. The military did not inform the ground aviation service controllers so that they, in turn, could send civilian aircraft in a different direction, bypassing the dangerous zone," noted the expert, commenting on one of the points in the report, which shows that the notification about the start of Operation 'Kovyor' was made after the aircraft had already sustained external damage.

"As stated in the report, there was an external impact on the aircraft. This refers to damage to the aircraft by the air defense system, which is configured to identify larger targets within its radius of operation. That is, when choosing between a drone and an aircraft, the Embraer became the target," Kaliyev emphasized.

External interference, as stated in the report, led to the suppression of all GPS functions, he noted.

In general, it's quite easy to identify those responsible because everything is documented, and all military orders given that day should have been recorded, he believes.

According to the expert, there has long been a standard etiquette in the world where the country responsible for an air crash apologizes, pays compensation, and punishes those responsible.

"I want to emphasize that this is not humiliation. Russia only needed to do this and not bring discussions about the causes of the air crash into the political realm, as this caused even more damage to the Russian Federation. This includes reputational damage, as well as financial losses, as many countries refused to fly through Russian territory after the incident," said Talgat Kaliyev.

Kazakhstan, except for SCAT Airlines, like several other countries, does not operate flights to Russia, he noted. The air crash and Russia's refusal to admit guilt have negatively affected Russia's aviation attractiveness and reputation.

"Regarding the version about birds causing the crash, despite it being reported by the pilots of the crashed plane themselves and then transmitted by ground services, it should be taken into account that the pilots could not have assumed that a civilian aircraft could be attacked by the military. Yes, it's recorded in the protocol, but these were merely guesses by the crew who were unaware of Operation 'Kovyor,'" he concluded.