[rodary]

This is odd.

I'm from the area, near Grozny. If Grozny were under fog, there are at least 10 airports nearby (Makhachkala, Vladikavkaz, Nalchik, Minvody, Rostov, Krasnodar etc) in the North Caucasus. Why would you fly east, across the Caspian Sea, toward Kazakhstan?

[appreciatorBus]

Obviously just speculation but if one was just fired upon, yet still in one piece and at least somewhat in control, a pilot might decide braving a longer diversion over a body of water to get away from the area, might be the safest course of action.

[dralley]

Also if you have control issues and a forced depressurization it might be best to avoid obstructions (like the Caucasus mountains) and significant course adjustments.

But from what I'm seeing the actual answer is that they were denied landing clearance, which is a bit suspicious.

[phire]

They reported a dual GPS failure.

My guess, they picked an airport they knew well, that they could probably navigate to with nothing more than a compass and landmarks. And if they suspected GPS jamming (personally, a dual GPS failure over Russia would be my first guess) they would be biased towards an airport far away from an active war zone.

I am curious why they didn't divert back to their departure airport at Baku. It's roughly the same distance and surely they knew that airport even better, and could just follow the coastline back. Maybe by the time they had the plane under control they were already much closer to Aktau.

[quink]

If I was a pilot flying into an at-war country I’d want my alternate to point in a different direction, the exact opposite course of the war zone ideally. Which this pretty much is.

And, to further that point, multiple airports you listed here are currently closed because of that war.

[selimthegrim]

Makhachkala has been taking international flights.

[quink]

I just checked the transcript I've seen floating out there, the first alternate was Baku, i.e. their departure airport. Then Mineralnye Vody (which is some way to the west), then Makhachkala, then they seemed to go far to the east, so while I think the first option was Baku - matching what I said, the list of options pretty quickly became 'anywhere'. What a harrowing flight.

[quink]

> The Grozny airport reportedly denied landing permission to the AZAL plane, and the aircraft was also refused permission to land at airports in Makhachkala and Mineralnye Vody.

says media in Azerbaijan now as per https://report.az/en/incident/crashed-azal-plane-shot-down-b...

There you go.

[ivan_gammel]

The entire region was the zone of active air defence and Vladikavkaz was surely not an option given the drone strike that damaged a shopping mall there. My only question here is why there were any civilian flights at the moment. They should have been diverted.

[Waterluvian]

Any time something makes no sense from this region of the world, there’s often a ridiculous Soviet style decision behind it.

https://bsky.app/profile/dandrezner.bsky.social/post/3le7jr7...

[rasz]

https://caliber.az/en/post/preliminary-investigation-azal-ai...

"Kill and hide. Azerbaijani officials tell local media that Russia hit flight J2-8243 with an anti-aircraft missile and then jammed electronics and _denied permission to land in three airports, steering the damaged plane into the Caspian Sea so that it would crash there and Russia’s role would never be discovered_."

[tiahura]

Mountains

[goodcanadian]

Grozny was not under fog.