Amazon has paused testing of its delivery drones following a crash involving two of its models, according to Bloomberg. Itโs the latest setback for Amazonโs beleaguered Prime Air program, which aims to deliver around 500 million packages a year to customers by the end of the decade. Bloomberg reports two Amazon drones crashed in rainy [โฆ]
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In the HBO documentary "MoviePass, MovieCrash," Ted Farnsworth is the CEO of the publicly traded Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY) when the company takes a majority stake in the movie-theater-subscription startup MoviePass in 2017.
Under Farnsworth's watch, MoviePass became a sensation after he and then-CEO Mitch Lowe dropped the monthly subscription fee from $30 a month to $10. It led to millions of subscribers and the company being hailed as the Netflix of movie theaters. Farnsworth and Lowe touted themselves in the press as the masterminds behind it all.
The documentary โ based on reporting by Business Insider โreveals the more complicated reality of the phenomenon, showing how MoviePass cofounders Stacy Spikes and Hamet Watt were pushed out of the company after the arrival of Farnsworth and Lowe.
With Farnsworth and Lowe at the helm, hundreds of millions of dollars were spent to not just keep the unsustainable $10-a-month plan going, but also on lavish parties at Coachella, and starting a movie production arm best known for releasing the 2018 movie "Gotti," a biopic on notorious crime boss John Gotti starring John Travolta that received a 0% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes.
In 2020, both HMNY and MoviePass went bankrupt (Spikes has since relaunched MoviePass), and two years later, Farnsworth and Lowe were charged with securities fraud.
As the documentary shows, the crash of MoviePass is just one of many failed ventures of the 61-year-old Farnsworth. Business Insider reached out to Farnsworth for comment but didn't get a response.
Here's a rundown of many of those companies (some of which went bankrupt), what Farnsworth did after MoviePass, and why he's currently in jail.
Note: "MoviePass, MovieCrash" is based on Business Insider's award-winning reporting on the company.
Eric Robert/Sygma/Getty
Farnsworth's first major attention came when he ran the 900-number psychic network, which became famous thanks to its star promoter, La Toya Jackson.
A 1998 bulletin from the Federal Trade Commission noted the Psychic Discovery Network as a company that received more than 50 complaints in 1997. It had a total of 60.
James.Pintar/Shutterstock
Farnsworth tried to use the popularity of the Psychic Network and the dot-com boom to capitalize on the multitrillion-dollar agricultural business in the early 2000s with the site Farmbid.com.
A 2000 Wired story touted the company as a site that featured "farm auctions, links to wholesalers, a detailed weather center, and even a 'farm chat' area."
But the farming industry wasn't that into it. According to Sunbiz, the official Florida business registry, the company folded in less than a year.
Farnsworth founded the company XStream Beverage Network Inc. in 2001, touting it as "an emerging developer, marketer and distributor of new age beverages."
He tried to buy a European energy drink called Dark Dog, but that deal never closed, according to Bloomberg.
By 2007, he was able to buy Global Beverage, which had in its stable Rudy Beverages, founded by famed 1970s Notre Dame football player Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger.
In November of that year, Farnsworth resigned as chairman of XStream, and its stock dropped 99%, according to Bloomberg.
Gary Gershoff/WireImage/Getty
Farnsworth's failure with XStream didn't stop him from trying another venture in the drink space. He became the CEO of Purple Beverage Co., touting an antioxidant-rich drink.
The stock for Purple Bev went as high as $3.24 in April 2008, according to Bloomberg, thanks partly to Farnsworth landing celebrity spokespeople like Chaka Khan and New York Yankees Hall of Fame pitcher Mariano Rivera. But by the time he resigned a year later, the stock had plummeted by 99%.
Farnsworth became the chairman of LTS Nutraceuticals Inc., a multilevel-marketing vitamin company. In 2011, it traded as high as $4.85. But by 2012, with Farnsworth running things, the stock fell 99%. It's unclear when he left the company because it didn't make periodic regulatory filings, according to Bloomberg.
In 2013, FedEx sued the vitamin company, saying it was owed $26,000. According to The Miami Herald, the judge ruled in FedEx's favor.
Over a decade after Farmbid, Farnsworth went back into the tech space with an app called RedZone Maps (through a company called Zone Technologies). The app flagged where crimes were being reported in a user's area.
A year later, Zone Technologies merged with Helios and Matheson to become publicly listed on the Nasdaq. That same year, Farnsworth was named CEO of HMNY.
Hollis Johnson/Business Insider
Since its birth in 2011, MoviePass had been trying to figure out a monthly subscription price that attracted moviegoers and would make a profit. By 2017, the company was on the brink of running out of money when Farnsworth got connected with MoviePass' then-CEO, Mitch Lowe. A deal was made for HMNY to take a majority stake in MoviePass. By that summer, Farnsworth and Lowe dropped the price to $10 a month, and the rest is history. With a huge rise in subscribers for MoviePass, the HMNY stock initially soared. But by 2020, MoviePass and HMNY went bankrupt.
At the time of bankruptcy, the company said it was under pending investigations by the Federal Trade Commission, SEC, four California district attorneys, and the New York attorney general.
In 2021, Farnsworth and Lowe settled with the FTC and reached a $400,000 settlement with the California district attorneys.
After MoviePass' bankruptcy, Farnsworth quickly landed back on his feet by starting a media company called Zash in less than a year. He later merged it with the publicly traded company Vinco Ventures. He acquired a TikTok rival called Lomotif and even tried (unsuccessfully) to buy the National Enquirer.
By the end of 2022, Vinco stock had cratered and is now worth less than one cent.
In 2024, Business Insider reported on Farnsworth's business tactics while at Zash. They mirror how he operated at MoviePass and some other ventures over the decades: Get involved with a publicly traded company, help raise funding from his finance connections at favorable terms for them, drive up the company's stock with splashy announcements, and leave retail investors with big losses when the stock crashes.
MoviePass/Reuters
In 2022, Farnsworth and Lowe were each charged with one count of securities fraud and three counts of wire fraud by the Department of Justice, which alleged the two "engaged in a scheme to defraud investors through materially false and misleading representations relating to HMNY and MoviePass's business and operations to artificially inflate the price of HMNY's stock and attract new investors."
Farnsworth has been in a Florida jail since August 2023.
During Farnsworth's time out on bail, he traveled from his home in upstate New York to Miami on multiple occasions without notifying his probation officer and was involved in a domestic incident that resulted in a restraining order, which he also didn't report, according to Bloomberg.
His bail was revoked in an August 2023 hearing. He's now in jail awaiting sentencing.
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for EJAF
In January, Farnsworth pleaded guilty to defrauding investors in the movie-ticket subscription service MoviePass, the US Department of Justice announced.
This came on the heels of Lowe pleading guilty to securities fraud conspiracy in September 2024.
Farnsworth also pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge for a second scheme related to a video-sharing platform he was involved with while under investigation for MoviePass.
January 7, 2025: This story has been updated to reflect new details.
Urbanandsport/NurPhoto
Emirates has called out social media platforms for not acting quicker to remove a video showing a fake plane crash.
The video, which appears to be computer-generated, shows a fake Emirates plane crash in Abu Dhabi.
In a statement posted on X, Emirates said: "We are aware of a video circulating on social media depicting an Emirates plane crash. Emirates confirms it is fabricated content and untrue."
The airline said it was in contact with "various social media platforms" in an effort to get the video taken down or "make clear that it is digitally created footage to avoid false and alarming information from circulating."
"Unfortunately the platforms' responses to such content review requests are not quick enough, therefore necessitating this statement," it continued.
Emirates also urged people to check and refer to official sources.
The video was still available to view on some platforms at the time of writing.
Business Insider has contacted Emirates for comment.
It comes as the airline announced its first Airbus A350 aircraft had officially entered commercial service, operating a flight from Dubai to Edinburgh.
Adnan Kazim, the airline's deputy president and chief commercial officer, said the flight marked a "pivotal" moment for the company and that it underscored "the strategic importance of the UK within our global network."
The aircraft is the first of 65 A350s Emirates has ordered from Airbus.
Yonhap via Channel News Asia
The CEO of Jeju Air addressed reporters on Tuesday, outlining how the airline plans to recover from the catastrophic crash that killed 179 people.
Kim E-bae announced measures he hoped would steady the firm in its deepest crisis, in the face of intense anger from victims' families.
Jeju's flight 7C2216 crash-landed on Sunday, hitting a barrier and bursting into flames after touching down without its landing gear.
All but two of the 181 people on board died, making it South Korea's worst-ever air disaster. The cause is still being investigated.
Chris Jung/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Jeju's shares tanked by 16% on the news, touching a record low on Monday. They rallied a little to close 8.7% lower before South Korean markets closed for the New Year.
Passengers began mass-canceling tickets, with at least 68,000 in a day.
On Tuesday, Kim held a press conference in Seoul and apologized, saying he knew Jeju had a huge task to regain fliers' trust.
The BBC covered and translated the press conference.
Kim gave some new information about Flight 7C2216, though he said the answer for why it crashed would have to wait for the formal investigation.
He said the pre-flight inspection of the Beong 737-800 showed nothing "abnormal" about the plane or the landing gear.
He also cited the airline's safety policies, saying all flights require sign-off from maintenance crews and that pilots are trained to high standards.
He said Jeju would take full responsibility for addressing the disaster, a notable pledge since nobody has formally determined Jeju to be at fault.
Kim addressed the cancelations and said he knew they would continue until passengers had confidence in Jeju again.
He also said the airline would offer onsite support at Muan International Airport for the grieving families gathered there, and prepare an emergency compensation package.
He also said Jeju staff, too, would receive support to help them mourn their colleagues.
At an earlier press event on Sunday, Kim apologized for the disaster and said the company's top priority was to support the families, per BBC News.
Kim said on Tuesday that Jeju would trim its schedules to give it more scope to focus on safety, decreasing air traffic by 10 to 15% until March.
Kim said the reduction did not mean Jeju was running too many planes beforehand.
Kim told reporters that even though Jeju Air has received the most fines of any Korean airline, its safety record improved over the years.
He said the airline increased its number of maintenance personnel since 2019.
Kim avoided directly answering a question about the barrier near the end of the runway that the plane hit.
Safety experts have focused on it as a possible reason the crash was so deadly.
Todd Curtis, founder of Air Safe Media, told CNBC of the barrier: "Certainly that made it difficult to stop the aircraft safely."
It could take investigators weeks, months, or even longer to uncover the exact cause of the crash.
A team of US National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing officials are supporting the South Korean authorities with the investigation.
JUNG YEON-JE/AFP via Getty Images
Passengers with the South Korean airline Jeju Air are canceling tickets after one of its aircraft crashed, killing 179 people.
The airline said that 68,000 flight reservations had been canceled as of 1 p.m. on Monday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.
Most of the cancellations happened after Flight 7C2216 crashed on Sunday.
Some 33,000 of the cancellations were for domestic flights, and 34,000 for international flights, the report said. Jeju is South Korea's biggest low-cost airline.
The Boeing 737-800 crashed while trying to land at South Korea's Muan International Airport at 9:03 a.m. 179 of the 181 people on board were killed, local authorities said.
Footage showed the plane slide on the runway before it came off, hit a barrier, and burst into flames.
The CEO of the airline, Kim E-bae, issued a public apology: "Above all, we express our deepest condolences and apologies to the families of the passengers who lost their lives in this accident.
"At present, the cause of the accident is difficult to determine, and we must await the official investigation results from the relevant government agencies. Regardless of the cause, as CEO, I feel profound responsibility for this incident," he said, according to The Guardian's translation.
On Monday, most of the homepage of the airline's website had been cleared. A black banner on its English-language version said: "We deeply apologize to all those affected by the incident. We will make every effort to resolve the situation. We sincerely regret the distress caused."
Mass cancelations have happened before after major accidents. This includes customers canceling bookings with Malaysia Airlines after two deadly incidents in 2014.
Investigations into the South Korean crash are underway and no cause has been concluded yet.
A bird strike is one possible factor, with an official in South Korea's transport ministry reportedly saying the airport's control tower issued a bird strike warning before the crash.
But experts are skeptical that it would likely be the only reason, as planes are designed with fail safes and with bird strikes in mind.
Video footage showed the plane landing without its landing gear deployed.
Why that was the case is not yet clear.
JUNG YEON-JE/AFP via Getty Images
Bird strike is being considered as a possible cause of the plane crash in South Korea, which killed almost everyone on board.
Although colliding with birds has always been a risk of flying, it has brought down comparatively few modern aircraft.
Some experts said of the Sunday crash that a bird strike was unlikely to be the sole cause.
"A bird strike should be a survivable event," said Sonya Brown, an aerospace-design lecturer at the University of New South Wales, in an interview with The Guardian.
She said that planes are designed to cope with bird strikes. Engine-builders have long tested their designs by launching bird carcasses into running engines to ensure they keep working, as reported by this CNBC article from 2017.
A June report by the US Federal Aviation Administration said wildlife strikes on civilian and military aircraft have killed 491 people and destroyed some 350 aircraft globally between 1988 and 2023.
It said that in the US, 49 civil aircraft were lost because of birds in the period between 1990 and 2023.
Civil aircraft include both airliners and general aviation planes. The latter are more susceptible to damage because many are smaller, have less robust airframes, and single engines.
While that may sound a lot, it represents a tiny fraction of total losses over that period of more than 30 years.
There were more than 27,000 aircraft fatalities between 1988 and 2021, according to the Aviation Safety Network, putting bird strikes as a factor in fewer than 1.8% of deaths. Most of the deaths involve general aviation planes.
Bird strikes on passenger jetliners very rarely bring down an aircraft. The last time it happened in the US was the 2009 crash-landing of theย "Miracle on the Hudson", where everyone survived.
Most of the time, bird strikes will cause damage to airlines, but pilots are safely able to land the plane. American Airlines, for example, suffered a bird strike over New York in December and circled back to the airport for an emergency landing, with no reported injuries.
Investigators have yet to give a reason for the loss of the Jeju Air flight, a Boeing 737-800.
An official in South Korea's transport ministry official said the airport's control tower issued a bird strike warning before the crash, Reuters reported.
The fire chief at Muan International Airport, where the plane crashed, said in a televised briefing that an investigation will consider whether birds stuck the plane.
South Korea's acting president ordered an emergency inspection of the country's airline operations. And the government said it will audit all 101 of the country's 737-800s with US investigators.
But a bird strike is being considered as a cause, or a possible factor. And other issues have been reported, too.
Video footage showed that the plane landed without its landing gear deployed.
Keith Tonkin, the managing director of Aviation Projects, an aviation consulting company in Australia, previously told BI: "It appears that the aircraft wasn't configured for a normal landing โ the landing gear wasn't down, and it looks like the wing flaps weren't extended either."
Commentators have also pointed to the design of the airport โ the plane came to a hard stop when it hit a solid wall near the runway.
Jeff Guzzetti, a former accident investigator at the US's Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board, told The New York Times that plane crashes are typically the result of multiple factors at once.
This is known as the "Swiss Cheese Model" in aviation, a theory that says a string of multiple smaller errors often lead to an air accident.
"The aviation industry is built on redundancy, and there are very few single-point failures in airplane design or airplane operations," he said. "Typically, it's a combination of factors."
Chris Jung/NurPhoto via Getty Images
A commercial aircraft crashed at a South Korean airport last month, killing 179 people.
Flight 7C2216, operated by the Korean budget airline Jeju Air, was carrying 181 passengers and crew when it tried to land at Muan International Airport at 9:03 a.m. local time but overran the runway.
A video broadcast by MBC News, a South Korean news network, showed the plane speeding down the runway, with smoke coming from its belly, before it crashed into what appeared to be a barrier and burst into flames.
The flight was traveling from Suvarnabhumi Internationalย Airport in Bangkok.
The aircraft was a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 that Ryanair, a budget Irish airline, operated before it was delivered to Jeju Air in 2017, according to the Planespotters.net flight tracking website. It was not a Max variant, which has been embroiled in quality and production problems.
Video footage shows the aircraft landed without its landing gear deployed.
Airline News editor and aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas told Business Insider that a bird strike could have caused a mechanical issue on the plane.
"It's possible that the bird strike prevented the standard landing gear operation," he said. "It's possible, however, the pilots could crank the landing gear down manually."
"But if they had multiple failures related to the engines, then they probably didn't have time to do it, and therefore they simply made a belly-up landing on the runway because they had no options," Thomas added.
Jeju Air CEO Kim Yi-bae told reporters on December 31 that the aircraft's pre-flight inspection found "no issues" and "nothing abnormal was noted with the landing gear," the BBC reported.
Kim Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
South Korea's transport ministry said that it planned to conduct a safety inspection of all Boeing 737-800 aircraft in the country, per Yonhap News.
The Boeing 737-800 is a popular aircraft that is used widely around the world.
Cirium data sent to BI found about 4,400 737-800s are used by nearly 200 airlines, representing 15% of the 28,000 passenger planes in service globally.
In a statement to BI, Boeing gave its condolences to families who lost loved ones and said it was in contact with and "ready to support" Jeju Air.
Spokespeople for Jeju Air did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement posted online, Jeju Air said it was "bowing" its head in apology and would investigate the crash.
A total of 179 people died. Two of the plane's six crew members survived and were conscious, according to local health officials. They were rescued from the tail section of the jet.
It was the first fatal crash involving a Jeju plane since the airline was founded in 2005. The last major aviation accident involving a South Korean airline was in 1997 when a Korean Air jet crashed in Guam, killing 228 people.
Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
In a televised briefing, Lee Jeong-hyeon, chief of the Muan fire station, said that workers were investigating what caused the crash, including whether birds struck the aircraft.
"It appears that the aircraft wasn't configured for a normal landing โ the landing gear wasn't down, and it looks like the wing flaps weren't extended either," Keith Tonkin, the managing director of Aviation Projects, an aviation consulting company in Australia, told BI.
The plane was almost completely destroyed, with the tail assembly the most intact part of the wreckage. After landing, the plane hit a wall, which Thomas said was within international standards, but the plane landed fast and far down the runway.
"The airport complied with international standards," he said. "The landing was anything but international standard."
Officials said that air traffic controllers warned about bird strike risks minutes before the incident, and a surviving crew member mentioned a bird strike after being rescued, The Guardian reported.
Thomas told BI that the pilots reported "mayday" shortly after air traffic controllers issued a bird strike warning. The pilots were then given permission to land on the opposite side of the runway.
Thomas said flight tracking was lost at about 900 feet, suggesting a possible electrical failure.
"I think that could well be one of the pivotal factors in this investigation as to why did it fail," he said. "What does that tell us about what was going on in the cockpit?"
South Korean Presidential Office via Getty Images
South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported that Muan International Airport has the highest rate of bird strike incidents among 14 airports nationwide.
The Independent reported that transport ministry officials said they recovered the aircraft's two black boxes: the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder.
These would normally provide investigators with information that could help string together events before and during a crash.
However, Yonhap reported that officials said one of the black boxes, the flight data recorder, was partially damaged. The cockpit voice recorder remained intact.
South Korean authorities said on Saturday that an analysis by the US National Transportation Safety Board found that the black boxes holding the flight data and cockpit voice recorders stopped recording around four minutes before the crash, per Yonhap news agency.
The crash occurred at 9.03 a.m., and the data stopped recording at 8.59 am., the report said.
South Korea's transport ministry said plans were "in place to investigate the cause of the data loss during the ongoing accident investigation," AFP reported.
Crashes typically have more than one cause โ known as the "Swiss Cheese Model" in aviation, a string of smaller errors often leads to an accident, not just one.
"The biggest risk is speculation because it obscures the actual causes of a near-miss, incident, or accident," Simon Bennett, an aviation safety expert at the University of Leicester in the UK, told BI.
"I appreciate that the relatives of the dead and injured will want answers. Understandably, they will want closure," he said. "However, rushing the investigation would do a huge disservice to the aviation community and airlines' customers."
Meiramgul Kussainova/Anadolu via Getty Images
Azerbaijan's president said that shooting from Russian territory caused the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash that killed 38 people.
His comments come after Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized for the incident without taking responsibility.
Ilham Aliyev said on Azerbaijani television Sunday that he didn't believe the incident was intentional but that the aircraft was hit "from the outside."
He said, per Sky News, that the fuselage was "riddled with holes," indicating that the theory the plane hit a flock of birds before crashing was incorrect.
Aliyev added that "some circles in Russia" supported this theory, while Russian officials also suggested a gas cylinder exploded on board the plane.
"In other words, this clearly showed that the Russian side wanted to cover up the issue, which, of course, is unbecoming of anyone," he said.
Aliyev went on to criticize Russia for not responding to the crash immediately, "except for some absurd theories."
According to Azerbaijani reports, the downing of the plane was connected to Russia's interception of Ukrainian drones near its border.
On Saturday, the Kremlin said Putin apologized for the crash during a phone call with Aliyev. Putin stopped short of claiming responsibility.
The Kremlin's press office said that Putin had "offered his apologies that the tragic incident had occurred in Russia's airspace and once again conveyed his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the plane crash victims and wished those injured the quickest recovery," per Russia's Tass news agency.
Azerbaijan Airlines flight Flight 8243 crash-landed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday. Kazakh authorities said 38 people died, including the pilots, while 29 others survived.
The aircraft was traveling to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, from Baku, Azerbaijan's capital, before it diverted to Kazakhstan.
Putin said that Ukrainian drones and Russian air defenses were operating around Grozny as the plane attempted to land, Tass reported.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Friday that the US had "seen some early indications that would certainly point to the possibility that this jet was brought down by Russian air defense systems."
When questioned by media whether the US had seen intelligence that pointed to the involvement of an air defense system, Kirby said the short answer was "yes" but said he would "leave it at that."
Experts and reports have also pointed to Russia likely being behind the crash. Alleged evidence includes the erratic route the plane took as well as photo and video evidence of the aircraft that shows holes in its fuselage and tail while it was still in the air.
Rashan Nabiyev, Azerbaijan's minister of digital development and transportation, told the country's media that "preliminary conclusions by experts point at external impact," the AP reported.
"The type of weapon used in the impact will be determined during the probe," he added.
The Kremlin had initially refused to comment on the allegations.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday: "Currently an investigation is in progress. Any air incident should be investigated by specialized aviation authorities."
"It would be wrong to build any hypotheses before the panel of inquiry presents its conclusions," he added.
Kazakhstan's Emergency Ministry Press Service via AP
A White House official said the US has seen "early indications" that the fatal crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane was caused by a Russian air defense system.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Friday that the US has "seen some early indications that would certainly point to the possibility that this jet was brought down by Russian air defense systems."
Kirby did not provide further details, but he said Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan were investigating the incident and that the US had offered to assist if needed.
When pressed for more information on whether the US had seen intelligence that pointed to the involvement of an air defense system, Kirby said the short answer was "yes" but that he would "leave it at that."
The Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 plane was en route to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, from Baku, Azerbaijan's capital, on Wednesday.
Flight 8243 then changed course over Russia and was trying to reach Kazakhstan's Aktau airport when it crash-landed.
Kazakh authorities said 38 people died, including the pilots, and 29 others survived.
Meiramgul Kussainova/Anadolu via Getty Images
The airline's president praised the pilots' "heroism" and said the crew's dedication to their duties and prioritization of human life had "immortalized their names in history."
Russian air defenses have been active around Grozny as Ukrainian drones have targeted the area as part of Ukraine's fightback against Russia's invasion.
Multiple experts and reports have pointed to Russia likely being behind the crash, citing the plane's erratic route as well as photo and video evidence of the aircraft that show holes in its fuselage and tail while it was still in the air.
Oliver Alexander, an OSINT analyst, said in a message to BI that "at this point, I don't think there is enough available evidence to conclusively say what exactly happened (type of missile etc)."
But he said "all the evidence I have seen points to the aircraft being hit by shrapnel from an air defense missile which severely damaged the elevator and rudder controls."
Sources with knowledge of Azerbaijan's investigation told The Wall Street Journal that Russia had redirected the aircraft from its airspace and jammed its GPS system.
Azerbaijani sources with knowledge of the country's inquiry also told The New York Times that Azerbaijani officials believed a Russian Pantsir-S air defense system had damaged the aircraft.
Rashan Nabiyev, Azerbaijan's minister of digital development and transportation, told the country's media that "preliminary conclusions by experts point at external impact," the AP reported.
"The type of weapon used in the impact will be determined during the probe," he added.
Azerbaijan Airlines said on Friday that a preliminary inquiry had blamed both "physical and technical external interference" but did not give any details.
Multiple airlines said after the crash that they would suspend flights to Russia and avoid Russian airspace. Most Western airlines have already been doing so since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The Kremlin has refused to comment on reports that Russian weaponry caused the crash.
Speaking at a news briefing on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "Currently an investigation is in progress. Any air incident should be investigated by specialized aviation authorities."
"It would be wrong to build any hypotheses before the panel of inquiry presents its conclusions. Of course, we cannot do that. No one should do it," he added.
Russia's civil aviation authority pointed to a bird strike as a possible cause of the crash.
After a missile system shot down a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet in 2014, international investigators concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin had likely given the system to separatists who used it.
All 298 people who were on board flight MH17 were killed.
Meiramgul Kussainova/Anadolu via Getty Images
An oxygen tank on the Azerbaijan Airlines flight exploded before the plane crash, Kazakhstan's transport minister said.
It adds a little more detail to the series of events leading to the fiery crash landing of the Embraer 190 on Christmas Day that killed 38.
The minister, Marat Karabayev, did not say definitively that the oxygen-tank explosion was a direct cause of the crash.
He also did not say why it exploded. Analysts have blamed Russia, saying it likely fired an air-defense missile at the plane by mistake.
The plane was bound for Russia from Azerbaijan โ but veered off course after sustaining some kind of damage, crossing the Caspian Sea to crash-land at the airport in Aktau, Kazakhstan.
At a press briefing Thursday, Karabayev said Kazakh authorities heard of the disaster from a Russian air-traffic controller. They said an oxygen cylinder had exploded in the passenger cabin of the aircraft, and that some passengers were losing consciousness.
Karabayev said this triggered an emergency response in Aktau. Rescuers were quickly on the scene and managed to rescue 29 of the 67 passengers.
The plane departed from Baku, Azerbaijan, early Wednesday, heading for Grozny, Russia.
Business Insider reported Thursday, citing reports from Euronews and The New York Times, that Azerbaijani investigators believed Russia shot the plane down.
Those sources pointed to a Russian Pantsir-S air-defense system.
Russia has said the plane diverted after a bird strike, and denied playing a role โ an explanation analysts were swift to dismiss.
Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security firm, said in an alert sent to its clients and shared with BI that the flight was "likely shot down by a Russian military air-defense system of unspecified type/variant over the North Caucasus Federal District."
Kazakhstan's transport ministry didn't immediately respond to a request for comments.
The cause of a deadly plane crash in southwestern Kazakhstan is being investigated, and some officials are claiming Russian involvement.
Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
Video footage of survivors emerging from the wreckage of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash on Wednesday, followed by two people surviving a Jeju Air crash on Sunday, showed it's possible to survive such catastrophic events.
29 people survived the Azerbaijan crash in Kazakhstan, and 38 people died. Two flight attendants seated in the tail section of the Jeju plane that crashed in South Korea lived, while the 179 others on board died.
CNN reported that emergency services said the tail section of the Jeju plane was the only piece somewhat intact after Sunday's accident.
The survivability of any plane crash largely depends on the circumstances of the accident. It's not yet known what caused the Azerbaijan or Jeju crashes or how any of the people on board either jet survived.
In general, however, seating arrangements and the actions of crew on board can contribute to survivability.
Specifically, seats in the rear of a plane โ the section from which the Azerbaijan survivors were emerging and the location of the jumpseats the Jeju crew would have been sitting โ are historically the safest, data shows.
Kazakhstan's Emergency Ministry Press Service via AP
Federal data analyzed by Time Magazine in 2015, which looked at 17 crashes between 1985 and 2000 that had both survivors and fatalities and seat maps available, found the back third of the aircraft had a fatality rate of 32%.
The rear middle seats had the lowest fatality rate at 28%.
That compares to the 39% fatality rate in the middle third section and the 38% fatality rate in the front third section. The study found the highest fatality rate was in the middle section aisle seats at 44%.
The report followed a 2007 analysis by the science and technology magazine Popular Mechanics.
It analyzed 20 crashes dating back to 1971 and found the survival rate in the aft, or rear, section was 69%, which is a 31% fatality rate. The middle section and front sections had survival rates of 56% and 49%, respectively.
The back of the plane may be safer because, when a plane crashes, the front and middle sections often absorb much of the impact energy.
This can allow the back of the aircraft to remain more intact during head-on collisions with water or terrain, even if the rear portion separates from the plane.
The sole four people who survived a Japan Airlines crash in 1985 were seated in the aft section when the plane slammed into a mountainside. 520 others died.
A Delta Air Lines crash in 1985 in Texas saw 27 survivors, most of whom were seated in the back of the aircraft. The aft section broke free during impact.
In 2012, the Discovery Channel purposefully crashed an unmanned Boeing 727 into the desert with test dummies on board to analyze survivability.
They found that the middle and aft sections were the least fatal, with the front section experiencing 12 times the force of gravity. The middle and aft sections experienced a G-force of eight and six, respectively.
Pilot handling and cabin crew responses can also improve the chances of surviving a plane crash.
Azerbaijan Airlines president Samir Rzayev spoke about the pilots' "heroism" to reporters on Wednesday. Both died in the crash.
"While this tragic accident brought a significant loss to our nation, the crew's valiant dedication to their duties until the last moment and their prioritization of human life have immortalized their names in history," Rzayev said, according to the Report, an Azerbaijani news agency.
Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger is one of the more famous examples of pilots whose quick decision-making is credited with saving lives.
In 2009, Sullenberger's US Airways plane lost engine power over New York City. He responded by ditching the aircraft in the Hudson River because there were no runways in gliding range. All 155 passengers and crew survived.
Bebeto Matthews/AP Images
Decades earlier, a United Airlines plane crashed in Iowa in 1989 due to an engine failure and subsequent hydraulics loss, meaning aircraft control was severely limited.
The pilots kept the landing gear down to absorb some of the crash shock and maintained relative control of the plane as it crashed. 184 of the 296 passengers and crew survived.
Flight attendants have also been credited for saving lives. During a fiery Japan Airlines runway collision in January, flight crews' quick response and communication were cited for the successful evacuation of all 379 people on board.
Federal authorities say there is no safest seat on a plane because every crash is different and depends on factors like how the plane impacted the ground and whether there was a fire.
Sully's water landing is an example of how the back of the plane could be most at risk after landing because it was taking on water with no exit doors available โ so those passengers were among the last to exit.
In the United crash in Iowa, most of the survivors were in the rows behind first class but in front of the wings. They likely lived because of how the plane hit the ground and broke during landing, allowing people to more easily escape. Some people who did not perish on impact died due to smoke inhalation, an NTSB investigation found.
In 1977, a Pan Am and a KLM Boeing 747 collided in Tenerife, Spain, killing 583 people and becoming the world's deadliest plane crash. However, 61 people seated in the front section of the Pan Am plane survived.
STR/JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty Images
The KLM jet hit the middle and aft sections of the Pan Am aircraft, causing the front of the Pan Am jet to be less severely damaged and allowing people to escape via an opening near the left wing.
Despite the different outcomes of the varying air crashes over the decades, flying is the safest mode of transportation โ regardless of where you sit โ thanks to strict safety laws and improvements in aircraft design.
A 2020 National Transportation Safety Board survivability report found that 1.3% of people involved in commercial airline accidents between 2001 and 2017 died, down from 4.7% between 1983 and 2000.
Issa Tazhenbayev/Anadolu via Getty Images
A preliminary investigation pointed to Russian air defenses as the cause of an Azerbaijan Airlines crash in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, Azerbaijani sources said.
Russia's civil aviation authority quickly pointed to a bird strike as a possible cause of the crash-landing, which killed 38 of the 67 people on board, including both pilots.
Aviation experts had been skeptical of the Russian government's bird crash explanation due to the plane's erratic course and the holes in the plane's fuselage and tail section.
Azerbaijani sources confirmed that the investigation found an air defense missile fired by Russian Pantsir-S struck the Azerbaijan Airlines aircraft, the New York Times and the Euronews TV network reported Thursday.
Ukraine was quick to put the blame on Russia.
On Wednesday, Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, said in an X post that the plane was "shot down by a Russian air defense system."
Others have also suggested that Russian air defenses likely played a role as images of the crash and the plane's flight track emerged.
Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security firm, said in a critical alert sent to its clients and shared with Business Insider that the flight was "likely shot down by a Russian military air-defense system of unspecified type/variant over the North Caucasus Federal District."
The firm cited video of the wreckage, Ukraine's official statement, and the "circumstances around the airspace security environment in southwest Russia."
It also said that "incidents of civilian airliners being misidentified and shot down by air-defence systems are not unprecedented in the region."
It pointed to examples such as Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which crashed in eastern Ukraine in 2014 after reportedly being hit by a Russian-made missile.
Matthew Borie, Osprey's chief intelligence officer, told BI that the firm was in the process of raising its risk ratings for that portion of Russian airspace to its highest level.
"We have a portion of Russian airspace within 300 kilometers of the Ukrainian border, we have at extreme, we'll be expanding that out to about 600 kilometers from the Russian border now," he said, equivalent to 373 miles.
The Azerbaijan Airlines flight was en route to Grozny, which Ukrainian drones have targeted in recent attacks.
The governor of the Russian region of North Ossetia said in a Telegram post that there were Ukrainian drone attacks carried out on Wednesday in a number of regions of the North Caucasus Federal District, which includes Grozny and the surrounding area.
The governor's post specifically mentioned a drone being taken down in Vladikavkas, which is about 70 miles away from Grozny.
Sources familiar with Azerbaijan's investigation into the crash told The Wall Street Journal that Russia redirected the Embraer-made aircraft from its airspace and jammed the GPS system.
Flightradar24, a live flight tracking website, said in a post on X that the plane was "exposed to GPS jamming and spoofing near Grozny."
Oliver Alexander, an independent OSINT analyst, told BI that "all the evidence I have seen points to the aircraft being hit by shrapnel from an air defense missile, which severely damaged the elevator and rudder controls."
In a thread on X, which cited post-crash footage, he wrote that "every single piece of debris that hit the aircraft had enough kinetic to punch through the skin and not just dent it."
Alexander also dismissed the preliminary information from Russia's civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, which suggested that the plane diverted after a bird strike, causing an onboard emergency.
He told BI that a bird strike would produce "a lot of blood" and "a lot of denting," neither of which seemed apparent in footage and images from the crash site.
"The location of the damage is all focused around the tail section," he added, "which would be very unlikely for a bird strike."
Subkhonkul Rakhimov, one of the surviving passengers, told RT, the Russian state-owned news network, that he had heard an explosion in the tail of the aircraft.
He also told TASS state news agency that he had seen the plane make three attempts to land the plane in Grozny.
Russia has cautioned against drawing conclusions.
On Thursday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it "would be wrong to put forward any hypotheses" until the investigation into the crash is concluded.
"We, of course, will not do this, and no-one should do this," he added, per a translation by the BBC.
Azerbaijan Airline's president, Samir Rzayev, told reporters Wednesday that the plane's black box had been recovered and its analysis was being "conducted in line with international aviation standards."
The country's president, Ilham Aliyev, said in a statement that while there are videos of the crash online, the cause was still unknown.
However, on Thursday, unnamed Azerbaijani government sources told Euronews that a preliminary investigation had found that a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the crash.
According to Euronews, the sources said that shrapnel from the missile hit the plane after it exploded during drone activity above Grozny.
Azerbaijan's Foreign Affairs department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Issa Tazhenbayev/Anadolu via Getty Images
The president of Azerbaijan Airlines praised the pilots of flight J2-8243 after the plane, carrying 67 people, crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
Although both pilots were among the 38 fatalities reported by Kazakh authorities, nearly half the passengersโ 29 people โsurvived.
Samir Rzayev, who heads up the airline, also known as AZAL, told reporters on Wednesday that the two pilot's "heroism will never be forgotten."
"While this tragic accident brought a significant loss to our nation, the crew's valiant dedication to their duties until the last moment and their prioritization of human life have immortalized their names in history," Rzayev said, according to the Azerbaijani news agency Report.
Rzayev said the pilots collectively had over 15,000 flight hours and that the plane had recently passed a technical inspection.
"Despite these measures, the causes of the incident are still under investigation," Rzayev added.
The Associated Press posted a video of the crash showing some passengers being pulled from the aft section of the aircraft, an area which is traditionally safer in a crash.
Per a 2015 analysis byย Time Magazine of US federal data from 1985 to 2000, the seats in the back of the plane had a fatality rate of 32%, compared to 39% in the middle and 38% in the front. The back middle seats had the lowest fatality rate, at 28%.
Still, the circumstances of the crash play a bigger role, like how a jet lands and the actions of its pilots.
The Embraer 190 jet had departed from Baku, Azerbaijan, early Wednesday, bound for Grozny, Russia.
Adverse weather conditions led to a diversion, the airline told BBC News. The flight-tracking website Flightradar24 shows that the plane made a crash-landing at about 06:28 local time near Aktau, Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan's Senate Chairman Ashimbayev Maulen told Reuters on Thursday that the cause of the crash remains unknown.
Preliminary information from Russia's civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, suggested that the plane diverted after a bird strike caused an onboard emergency, according to AP.
And Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov cautioned against speculating on the cause of the crash before the completion of an investigation, per the Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti.
However, Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, put the blame on Russia. On Wednesday evening, he claimed in an X post that the commercial airline was "shot down by a Russian air defense system."
In the post, he said there is video footage from inside the plane, showing "punctured life vests and other damage."
Others have also suggested Russian involvement.
Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security firm, told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that the plane may have been damaged by a Russian anti-missile system. The firm cited footage of the crash, the apparent damage to the aircraft, and recent military activity in the area.
"Incidents of civilian airliners being misidentified and shot down by air-defence systems are not unprecedented in the region," a critical alert issued by Osprey and provided to Business Insider said.
Oliver Alexander, an OSINT analyst, said in a message to BI that "at this point, I don't think there is enough available evidence to conclusively say what exactly happened (type of missile etc)."
But he added that "all the evidence I have seen points to the aircraft being hit by shrapnel from an air defense missile which severely damaged the elevator and rudder controls."
Ukrainian drones have targeted Grozny in recent weeks, and the governor of the Russian region of North Ossetia said in a Telegram post on Wednesday that there were Ukrainian drone attacks carried out in a number of regions of the North Caucasus Federal District that day.
The district includes Grozny and the surrounding area.
The post specifically mentioned a drone being taken down in Vladikavkas, about 70 miles west of Grozny.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in a statement: "There are videos of the plane crash available in the media and on social networks, and everyone can watch them. However, the reasons for the crash are not yet known to us."
This wouldn't be the first time Russia was blamed for the shooting down of a passenger aircraft.
In 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was hit by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people onboard. Investigators said the missile system used originated in Russia and was launched from a part of Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed forces.
Russia has denied involvement in the MH17 crash.
Azerbaijan Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Rzayev, the airline's president, told reporters that the plane's black box had been recovered and that "its analysis is being conducted in line with international aviation standards."
Embraer, which built the aircraft that crashed Wednesday, said in a statement that it was "deeply saddened" by the crash and was working closely with relevant authorities to support the investigation.
STR/JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty Images
A report released Wednesday from the Japan Transport Safety Board concluded that human error was the primary cause of a deadly collision at Tokyo's Haneda Airport.
The incident occurred on January 2, 2024, when a Japan Airlines (JAL) passenger plane arriving from New Chitose Airport in Sapporo barreled into a Japan Coast Guard plane waiting on the runway.
According to the report, the Coast Guard pilot mistakenly believed he had clearance to enter the runway. The air traffic controller told the coast guard plane that it was "No. 1," meaning it was first in line to take off and meant to stop and wait at a holding point. The pilot misinterpreted the instruction, believing it to be permission to enter the runway for takeoff.
In the final moments before the collision, the Coast Guard pilot ordered his co-pilot to go through a checklist that is typically performed once final takeoff clearance has been granted. The pilot, who survived, told investigators he thought he heard "cleared for takeoff" from the control tower.
The report noted that the pilot said he was in a hurry, which could have contributed to the misinterpretation. The Coast Guard plane was traveling to the city of Niigata to deliver emergency supplies after recent earthquakes on Japan's west coast, and the pilot said he was worried about his crew getting home late from the mission.
The report said that there were other contributing factors to the collision: Air traffic control failed to realize that the Coast Guard plane had entered the runway, despite the runway occupancy alert, and the JAL plane didn't see the other aircraft as it was descending due to limited visibility. The accident occurred around 5:47 p.m., after sunset.
Five of the six people aboard the Coast Guard aircraft died. The pilot survived but was seriously injured.
All 379 passengers and crew on the passenger plane escaped just before the jet erupted into flames.
Jens Schlueter/Getty Images
A DHL cargo plane crashed into a house near Lithuania's Vilnius airport, killing at least one person and injuring three others.
The plane, a Boeing 737 aircraft en route from Germany, crashed outside Vilnius International Airport at around 5:30 a.m. local time, the airport said on Facebook.
"We can confirm that today at around 4:30 am CET an aircraft of Swift Air, a third-party carrier operating under contract for DHL, which was on its way from LEJ Airport (Leipzig, Germany) to VNO Airport (Vilnius, Lithuania), made a forced landing about one kilometer from VNO Airport," a DHL spokesperson told BI.
The spokesperson added that four people were onboard and that the cause of the incident was not known.
At least one crew death resulted from the crash, the Associated Press and Reuters reported.
According to surveillance video seen by AP, the plane descended normally as it approached the airport, but then exploded in a huge ball of fire out of sight behind a building.
The mayor of Vilnius, Valdas Benkunskas, told Business Insider that as of Monday morning, three crew members were still being treated in a hospital.
All 12 residents of the house that was crashed into are safe and have been evacuated, Reuters reported, citing information from a police press conference.
Benkunskas told BI that the residents, including two children, have been accommodated in a hotel and are "completely safe."
Benkuskas told BI that the crash narrowly avoided being more deadly.
"Very near that place, we have another block of houses with many people," he said. "And 300 meters away, we have a logistical center, which is full of employees, so I believe that we could have had much more consequences in that case."
The mayor said the city is safe, adding that a "good illustration of this is that even after such a tragic event, flights from the airport were only suspended for about an hour."
Renatas Poลพฤla, the head of Lithuania's firefighting and emergency services unit, said the plane fell a few kilometers before the airport. "It just skidded for a few hundred meters, its debris somewhat caught a residential house," he said, per AP.
"Residential infrastructure around the house was on fire, and the house was slightly damaged, but we managed to evacuate people," he added.
On Monday, Lithuania's police chief, Arลซnas Paulauskas, told reporters that a terrorist attack could not be ruled out.
"This is one of the versions that needs to be investigated and verified. There is still much work ahead of us," Paulauskas said, according to German press agency DPA.
However, according to CNN, Paulauskas noted that a "technical fault or a human error" was more likely.
The police chief said the fact-finding mission could take a week or even longer, per DPA, adding: "These answers will not come so quickly."
Benkuskas, the mayor, told BI that "it's important to follow the reliable information sources and not to give into the panic."
He added, "We need an investigation. I believe we will find out why we have this tragedy very soon."
