close
close

Moscow warns against ‘hypotheses’ after Azerbaijani plane crash

Moscow warns against ‘hypotheses’ after Azerbaijani plane crash

azerbaijani and American officials believe that Russian A surface-to-air missile caused the deadly crash of an Azerbaijani passenger plane, media reports and a US official said on Thursday, as the Kremlin warned against “hypotheses” about the disaster.

The Kazakhstan Airlines plane crashed on Wednesday near the Kazakh city of Aktau, an oil and gas hub, after deviating from its course for undetermined reasons.

38 of the 67 people on board died.

The Embraer 190 aircraft It was supposed to fly northwest from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to the city of Grozny in Chechnya, southern Russia, but instead veered far off course across the Caspian Sea.

An investigation is underway and the pro-government Azerbaijani website Caliber cited unnamed officials as saying they believed a Russian missile fired from a Pantsir-S air defense system shot down the plane.

The claim was also published by The New York Times, broadcaster Euronews and the Turkish news agency Anadolu.

Some military and aviation experts said the plane could have been accidentally shot at by Russian air defense systems because it was flying in an area where Ukrainian drone activity had been reported.

A former expert from France’s Bureau of Investigation and Analysis for the Safety of Civil Aviation (BEA), an air accident investigation agency, said there appeared to be “a lot of shrapnel damage” to the wreckage.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said the damage was “reminiscent” of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, which was shot down with a surface-to-air missile by Russian-backed rebels over eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Azerbaijan Airlines plane shot down by Russian missile – Euronews

Other topics of interest

Azerbaijan Airlines plane shot down by Russian missile – Euronews

Azerbaijani government sources told Euronews that the damaged plane was not allowed to land at Russian airports.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “It would be a mistake to formulate hypotheses before the conclusions of the investigation.”

Shrapnel impacts reported

Euronews quoted Azerbaijani government sources as saying that “shrapnel hit passengers and cabin crew when it exploded next to the plane in mid-flight.”

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said early indications suggested a Russian anti-aircraft system hit the plane.

The Kazakh news agency Kazinform quoted a regional prosecutor as saying that two black boxes from flight registers had been recovered.

Azerbaijan Airlines initially said the plane flew into a flock of birds before withdrawing the statement.

Kazakh authorities said 38 people had died and there were 29 survivors, including three children.

Jalil Aliyev, father of flight attendant Hokume Aliyeva, told AFP that this was supposed to be his last flight before starting to work as a lawyer for the airline.

“Why did his young life have to end so tragically?” The man said with a trembling voice before hanging up the phone.

Eleven of the injured are in intensive care, Kazakhstan’s Health Ministry said.

day of mourning

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev declared a day of mourning on Thursday and canceled a planned visit to Russia for an informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a grouping of former Soviet nations.

“I extend my deepest condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in the accident… and wish a speedy recovery to those injured,” Aliyev said in a social media post on Wednesday.

The Flight Radar website showed that the plane deviated from its normal route, crossed the Caspian Sea and then circled over the area where it eventually crashed near Aktau, on the sea’s eastern coast.

Kazakhstan said the plane was carrying 37 Azerbaijani passengers, six Kazakhs, three Kyrgyz and 16 Russians.

Bloody survivors

A Kazakh woman told the local affiliate of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) that she was near the spot where the plane crashed and rushed to the scene to help survivors.

“They were covered in blood. They were crying. They were asking for help,” said the woman, who identified herself as Elmira.

He said they saved some teenagers.

“I will never forget her look, full of pain and despair,” Elmira said. “A girl pleaded: ‘Save my mother, my mother is back there.’”

Russian President Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with Aliyev and “expressed his condolences in connection with the accident,” Peskov said at a news conference.