Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 final flight timeline
Nothing says Christmas Day like reviewing the available flight logs from a tragedy where dozens of people lost their lives. These are my observations so far that I’ll keep updating. All times in UTC.
December 27, 2024 Update:
My current assessment is the missile struck after 04:42:41 UTC and before 05:25:07 UTC.
Ian Petchenik has outdone himself at FlightRadar24 and provided a flight path based on the headings without location data, and did a great job. I’ll keep writing my own analysis below, I don’t think it’s going to be better than this:
Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 (J28243/AHY8243)
4K-AZ65 Mode-S 600841
Baku to Grozny
🟢 All Good.
🟡 Has the missile struck yet?
🔴 Missile has struck before this point.
2024–12–25 03:55:34 🟢
40.4632,50.03917
wheels up from Baku
2024–12–25 04:08:36 🟢
41.476276,49.390762
Reached cruising altitude of 30,000ft
2024–12–25 04:25:20 🟢
42.825871,47.625927
The electronic warfare attack has started. They lose GPS to jamming, without GPS the transponder falls-back to transmitting positionless Mode-S. With insufficient receivers within LOS for multilateration, FlightRadar24 loses a fix on their position. There is a 12:01 minute gap while the GPS isn’t yet being sucessfully spoofed.
2024–12–25 04:26:51 🟢
still no coordinates from GPS/GNSS
Started descent from 30,000 feet to Grozny
2024–12–25 04:37:21 🟢
<spoofed location>
Electronic warfare attack enters the second (spoofing) phase, where the GPS is being told by EW it is somewhere else, circling. They are at 14075 ft in their descent into Grozny.
2024–12–25 04:40:30 🟢
<spoofed location>
Last spoofed message to be received by FlightRadar24, still on approach, descending, at 9000 ft, within MANPADS range (and everything else). They appear to lose even spoofed GPS after this message, altitude still being broadcast. Descending at 2000 feet per minute, at 9000 feet, should land by 04:45:00.
2024–12–25 04:42:27 🟢
Mode-S <no location> Heading 297
Down to 4275 feet, vertical rate of descent has increased to 2815 ft/min from 2000 ft/min
2024–12–25 04:42:41 🟢
Mode-S <no location> Heading 297
Down to 3750 feet, descending still at 2816 feet per second 14 seconds later, steady heading, that’s why I think the missile explosion had happened yet.
[ MISSILE STRIKE HERE? OR GO AROUND? ]
2024–12–25 05:03:35 (14 second later) 🟡
Mode-S <no location> Heading 78
Altitude of 2950 feet and climbing, at an almost perpendicular heading to their original, with a vertical speed of +1024 feet per minute.
2024–12–25 05:03:39 (4 seconds later) 🟡
Mode-S <no location> Heading 69
3000 feet and climbing at 960 feet per minute, they’re turning left
2024–12–25 05:03:40 (1 second later) 🟡
Mode-S <no location> Heading 63
3025 feet and climbing at 1088 feet per minute, still turning left
2024–12–25 05:04:21 (40 seconds later) 🟡
Mode-S <no location> Heading 57
Only a heading reported, still turning left.
2024–12–25 05:13:24 (09:03 minutes later) 🟡
Mode-S <no location>
2700 feet, nothing else; if there was a second attempt to land in Grozny this is it.
2024–12–25 05:13:47 (23 seconds later) 🟡
Mode-S <no location> Heading 300
4000 feet, climbing at a rate of 2688 feet per minute, heading 300. Missed the second attempt?
2024–12–25 05:14:14 (27 seconds later) 🟡
Mode-S <no location> Heading 354
climbing at 2304 feet per minute they’ve turned right to 354; heading North.
2024–12–25 05:15:02 🟡
Mode-S <no location> Heading 356
At 6400 feet, climbing slightly 64 feet per minute
2024–12–25 05:23:36 🟡
Mode-S <no location>
10,025 feet, last Squawk 1310, their original identifier
2024–12–25 05:25:07 🔴
Mode-S <no location>
9650 feet, Squawk 7700 (Emergency)
2024–12–25 06:07:50 🔴
Mode-S (43.82469,49.88291)
GPS fix restored, outside of jamming, now feeding the transponder lat/lon again. 3525 feet and descending at 1920 feet per minute; they’re bouncing all over.
2024–12–25 06:28:04 🔴
43.88396,51.00821 (GPS)
Descending at 3264 ft/min, last message before impact.
All Data from FlightRadar24
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijan_Airlines_Flight_8243
