It's interesting that the "plot" as Daily Mail reports shoehorns nicely into shooting down the plane "flying" north and west from Baku to Grozny, and then ---
"The airliner, with 67 people on board, was due to fly to Grozny in Russia's Chechen Republic but it was diverted because of fog, the airline said, according to the BBC. 'A surviving passenger told Russian TV he believed the pilot had tried twice to land in dense fog over Grozny before ‘the third time, something exploded… some of the aircraft skin had blown out,' the network reported."Following the plot, then the pilots headed across the water, rather than turning back to Baku, about the same distance from Grozny as Aktau.Everything We Know About What Led Up To The Azerbaijan Airliner Crash War Zone, 26 December 2024.
So some questions for the "plot:" Who wants to try to land a commercial airliner in an active war zone in fog, after being diverted once already? Who wants to fly east over the water, when the originating airport is known, safe and of the approximate same distance?
A pix provided by the Daily Mail:
Seems like a lot of "less than optimal" decisions were made throughout by many, many decision makers.