Towards a realpolitik of aviation safety. A critique of the Conflict Zone Information Bulletin safety protocol grounded in a sociological analysis of the Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 incident

AbstractPurpose: This paper draws on a sociological analysis of the 2024 Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 incident to critique the Conflict Zone Information Bulletin (CZIB) normative-bureaucratic safety protocol. Sociological theories referenced include: passive and active learning; latent and active error; systems-thinking; organisational accident and the Swiss cheese model of accident trajectory. The Azerbaijan Airlines Flight J2-8243 incident followed earlier shoot-downs. For example: Iran Air Flight 655; Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17; Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752. Earlier shoot-downs confirmed the importance of risk-free routing.Design/methodology: The paper draws on authoritative secondary data, for example, the 2025 Preliminary Report published by Kazakhstan’s Commission for Aviation Investigation, to mount a critique of the Conflict Zone Information Bulletin (CZIB) normative-bureaucratic safety protocol. The paper: Describes the factors that contributed to the shoot-down; Tests the efficacy of normative-bureaucratic defences against shoot-downs, such as the sharing of information via International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Annex 13-compliant investigations and the issuing of CZIBs; Asks whether accident investigators pay sufficient attention to the social, economic and political context of a near-miss, incident, accident or shoot-down when establishing causation; Assesses the workload implications of considering the social, economic and political context of a near-miss, incident, accident or shoot-down.Findings: It is concluded that Azerbaijan Airlines failed to act on the relevant CZIB for two reasons. First, Azerbaijan’s government expected the airline to maintain an air bridge with its influential neighbour. While a private concern, Azerbaijan Airlines is the country’s de facto flag carrier, and is expected to act as such by the government. Secondly, the authoritarian character of Azerbaijan’s government discouraged the airline from questioning its government. It is concluded that the European Union’s CZIB normative-bureaucratic safety protocol is compromised by realpolitik without and within the aviation industry. Normative-bureaucratic safety protocols such as CZIBs may create a false sense of security, given this reality.Originality/value: To the best of the author’s knowledge, at the time this paper was written the 2024 Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 accident trajectory had not been subjected to a holistic, sociological analysis. The paper’s value lies in that fact that it examines the immediate and proximate causes of the flight J2-8243 incident through a powerful sociological lens that draws on the work of risk-management luminaries such as Professor James Reason, whose Swiss Cheese model of system failure is used by many aviation accident investigators.