Russia warns against “hypotheses” regarding the Azerbaijani plane crash
The Russian government has warned against promoting “hypotheses” about what caused the crash of a Russia-bound passenger plane that killed 38 people in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
Some aviation experts indicated that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane was hit by air defense systems over the Russian republic of Chechnya, and Azerbaijan’s state media quoted officials as saying a Russian missile was responsible.
Before it fell near the Kazakh city of Aktau, the plane’s course was diverted across the Caspian Sea, from its destination in Chechnya to western Kazakhstan.
Twenty-nine of the 67 people on board survived. Azerbaijan held a national day of mourning on Thursday for the victims of the accident.
“It is a great tragedy that has become a source of great sadness for the Azerbaijani people,” President Ilham Aliyev said on Thursday.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “It would be wrong to put forward any hypotheses before the results of the investigation. We, of course, will not do that, and no one should do that. We have to wait until the investigation is over.” complete.”
The Embraer 190 plane took off from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, on Wednesday morning. The airline said that the plane was scheduled to fly to Grozny in Chechnya, but its course was diverted due to fog.
One of the surviving passengers told Russian television he believed the pilot twice tried to land in heavy fog over Grozny before “the third time, something exploded… and part of the plane’s skin flew off.”
The plane was redirected to Aktau Airport, about 450 kilometers (280 miles) to the east. The footage shows the plane heading toward the ground at high speed 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) from the runway, before it burst into flames as it landed.
Kazakh authorities have recovered the flight data recorder and an investigation is underway. Shortly after the accident, reports from Russian state-controlled television said the most likely cause was a collision with a flock of birds.
Aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia told Reuters news agency that this type of collision usually causes the plane to slide toward the nearest airport. He added: “It is possible to lose control of the plane, but you do not fly violently off course as a result.”
The pattern of damage inside and outside the plane suggests active Russian air defense in Grozny may have caused the crash, said Justin Crump of risk consultancy Sibilin.
He told BBC Radio 4: “It looks very much like an air defense missile exploding at the back and left of the plane, if you look at the pattern of fragments that we see.”
Azerbaijan’s state-run AnewZ channel said late Thursday that a preliminary investigation found that the plane was hit by shrapnel from a surface-to-air missile from the Russian Pantsir-S defense system.
When asked about the reports, the Attorney General’s Office told the BBC that every version of them was being investigated.
Chechnya has already been subjected to attacks by Ukrainian drones this month, and authorities in neighboring Ingushetia said the Russian region was targeted for the first time since the start of the war in Ukraine.
A shopping mall was reportedly hit when a drone was shot down in neighboring North Ossetia, killing a woman.
Most of those on board were Azerbaijani citizens, but there were also some passengers from Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Video footage showed survivors emerging from the wreckage, some with visible injuries.
The injured were transferred to the hospital. Azerbaijan’s AZERTAC news agency said on Thursday that seven of them were in good enough condition to return to Baku.
Azerbaijan Airlines told reporters that the plane underwent full maintenance in October and did not have any technical faults.
Embraer, a Brazilian manufacturer and smaller competitor to Boeing and Airbus, has a strong safety record.
