How Russian Missiles Brought Down Azerbaijan Flight 8243

???? Become a Member: https://www.youtube.com/@Reconstructednews/join

Newsletter: https://reconstructed.news
Website: https://reconstructed.tv/
Sponsor + business inquiries: partnership@reconstructed.media

Other Platforms:
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@reconstructednews
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reconstructednews
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reconstructednews
X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/reconstructedyt

Podcasts:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4wyfTxDKevCQRveg081dGJ

----

On Wednesday, 25 December 2024, Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 was climbing away from fog-bound Grozny when the cockpit voice recorder caught two bangs, 25 seconds apart. Within 23 seconds all three hydraulic systems were empty and the elevator, ailerons and rudder froze. For the next 74 minutes, Captain Igor Kshnyakin and First Officer Aleksandr Kalyaninov flew the Embraer 190 across the Caspian Sea with nothing but the two thrust levers.

This film reconstructs those minutes in 3D from the record: the Kazakh investigation commission's preliminary report (cockpit voice and flight data recorders, the radio exchanges with Grozny, Rostov and Aktau), its interim statement of December 2025, the accounts of the survivors and rescuers, and the official statements that followed, from the first "bird strike" to the Kremlin's words in Dushanbe and the joint statement of 15 April 2026. What is still not on record (the exact path over the sea, the last words with Aktau, the final report) is said plainly as unknown. 38 of the 67 people on board died; 29 survived, most of them in the tail. May they rest in peace.

Chapters
00:00 Cold open
01:54 Christmas morning in Baku
03:28 No GPS over Grozny
06:01 Twenty-five seconds
09:04 Where to land
12:08 Flying on the engines
16:09 Mayday, Aktau
18:51 The tail
20:56 Bird strike
23:33 Ten metres
26:31 Seventy-four minutes

???? Sources, photo credits and corrections: https://reconstructed.app/sources/azerbaijan-8243

Main sources
Kazakhstan Ministry of Transport, preliminary report (4 Feb 2025): https://aqshamnews.kz/uploads/files/20250204210925673.pdf
Kazakhstan Ministry of Transport, interim statement (25 Dec 2025): https://www.gov.kz/uploads/2025/12/25/d185e1dc1749f15c71aba8a47d4c194b_original.178292.pdf
Azerbaijan and Russia, joint statement of the foreign ministries (15 Apr 2026): https://mfa.gov.az/en/news/no15626
Kremlin (Dushanbe, 9 Oct 2025): http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/78179
President of Azerbaijan (AzTV interview, 29 Dec 2024): https://president.az/en/articles/view/67806
Flightradar24: https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/flight-tracking-news/major-incident/azerbaijan-airlines-e190-crashes-near-aktau/
Reuters (via The Star): https://www.thestar.com.my/news/world/2024/12/27/passenger-on-crashed-plane-says-there-was-at-least-one-loud-bang-before-it-went-down
Tengrinews (survivors): https://en.tengrinews.kz/kazakhstan_news/survivor-of-the-aktau-plane-crash-shared-how-it-all-happened-265956
APA (cabin crew): https://en.apa.az/incident/surviving-cabin-crew-member-of-crashed-azal-plane-while-flying-over-grozny-the-sound-of-an-impact-was-heard-456792
Novaya Gazeta: https://novayagazeta.ru/amp/articles/2025/03/06/ne-pozvonili-tolko-iz-rossii
NASA Dryden, propulsion-controlled aircraft: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/88794main_PCA.pdf

Credits
Official records and releases: Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Kazakhstan (preliminary report figures and flight-data plots); Ministry of Emergency Situations of Kazakhstan (video and photo); Akimat of Mangystau Region; Ministry of Emergency Situations of Azerbaijan; Azerbaijan Airlines (video); Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan. Photos and video: Press Service of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, president.az (CC BY 4.0); Presidential Executive Office of Russia, kremlin.ru (CC BY 4.0); Wikimedia Commons: Mehmet Mustafa Celik (CC BY-SA 4.0), Treflyn (CC BY-SA 2.0), Dilaver Najafov (CC BY-SA 4.0), autocifero (CC BY-SA 3.0), Bottom text1 (CC BY-SA 4.0), Dor Shabashewitz (CC BY-SA 4.0), inbusiness.kz (CC BY-SA 4.0), Xoqoni Said (CC0), Rasim (CC0). Maps and data: Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 by EOX IT Services (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data, CC BY 4.0), Natural Earth (public domain), flight track from Flightradar24 data (redrawn by us), NASA Dryden (public domain). Every other picture is our own 3D reconstruction. Full credits on the sources page.

We built this film on the record, but mistakes can happen. If something is not right, tell us in the comments and we will correct it.

#Azerbaijan #Aktau #AviationDisaster