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Azerbaijan observed a national day of mourning on Thursday for the victims of the plane crash that killed 38 people and injured all 29 survivors as speculation mounted over a possible cause of the disaster, with some experts saying the plane was damaged was fired upon by Russian air defenses.
The Embraer 190 of Azerbaijan Airlines was on its way from Azerbaijan capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted for reasons still unclear and crashed while making an attempt to land in Aktau in Kazakhstan after flying to the east over the Caspian Sea.
The plane went down about 3 kilometers (about 2 miles) from Aktau. Cellphone footage circulating online appeared to show the plane making a steep descent before crashing into the ground in a fireball. Other images showed that part of its fuselage had been torn from the wings and the rest of the plane was lying upside down in the grass.
As the official crash investigation began, there were theories about a possible cause, with some experts claiming that holes seen in the tail section of the plane may indicate that it could have come under fire from Russian air defense systems that shot down a Ukrainian drone -encounter attack.
Ukrainian drones had previously attacked Grozny, the provincial capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, and other regions in the country’s North Caucasus. An official in Chechnya said another drone attack on the region was called off on Wednesday, although federal authorities did not report it.
National flags were lowered in Azerbaijan on Thursday, traffic across the country came to a halt at noon, and signals sounded from ships and trains as the country observed a nationwide moment of silence.
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said it was too soon to speculate on the reasons behind the crash, but said the weather had forced the plane to change its planned course.
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“The information given to me is that the plane changed its course between Baku and Grozny due to poor weather conditions and went to Aktau airport, where it crashed on landing,” he said.
Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said that preliminary information indicated that the pilots flew to Aktau after a bird strike led to an emergency on board.
According to Kazakh officials, those on board the plane included 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhs and three Kyrgyz nationals. Russia’s Emergencies Ministry flew nine Russian survivors to Moscow for treatment on Thursday.
Mark Zee of OPSGroup, which monitors the world’s airspace and airports for risks, said analysis of images of fragments of the crashed plane indicated it was almost certainly hit by a surface-to-air missile, or SAM.
“Much more to investigate, but at a high level we would put the probability of it being a SAM attack on the aircraft to be well in the 90-99% bracket,” he said.
Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security company based in the United Kingdom, warned its clients that the “Azerbaijan Airlines flight was likely shot down by a Russian military air defense system.” Osprey provides analysis for carriers still flying in Russia after Western airlines stopped their flights during the war.
Osprey CEO Andrew Nicholson said the company had issued more than 200 warnings regarding drone attacks and air defense systems in Russia during the war.
“This incident is a stark reminder of why we do what we do,” Nicholson wrote online. “It is painful to know that despite our efforts, lives were lost in a way that could have been avoided.”
Caliber, an Azerbaijani news website, claimed the plane was fired upon by a Russian Pantsyr-S air defense system as it approached Grozny. It questioned why Russian authorities failed to close the airport despite the apparent drone raid in the area. Khamzat Kadyrov, head of Chechnya’s Security Council, said air defenses shot down drones that attacked the region on Wednesday.
Caliber also asked why Russian authorities did not allow the plane to make an emergency landing in Grozny or other nearby Russian airports after it was hit.
Asked about the claims that the plane was shot by air defense assets, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “it would be wrong to make hypotheses before investigators make their judgment.”
Kazakhstan’s parliamentary speaker Maulen Ashimbayev also warned against jumping to conclusions based on photos of the plane’s fragments, describing the allegations of air defense fire as unfounded and “unethical.”
Other officials in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have similarly avoided commenting on a possible cause of the crash, saying it will be up to investigators to determine.
& copy 2024 The Canadian Press
