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The Russian government has warned against promoting “speculation” about the cause of the crash of a Russian-bound airliner that killed 38 people in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
Pictures of the shattered fuselage show structural damage and some aviation experts say the Azerbaijani Airlines plane may have been hit by Russian anti-aircraft missiles in Chechnya.
Before landing near the Kazakh city of Aktau, the plane was diverted across the Caspian Sea, from where it went from Chechnya to western Kazakhstan.
29 of the 67 people on board survived. Azerbaijan observed a day of mourning on Thursday for the victims of the accident.
Reuters“This is a great tragedy that has become a great sorrow for the people of Azerbaijan,” President Ilham Aliyev said on Thursday.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “It would be wrong to make any assumptions before the investigation has been carried out. We, of course, will not do this, and no one should do this. he concluded.”
The Embraer 190 took off from the Azerbaijani capital Baku on Wednesday morning. It was supposed to fly to Grozny in Chechnya but was diverted due to fog, the airline said.
One survivor told Russian TV that he believed the pilot had tried twice to drop heavy fog over Grozny “the third time, something exploded… one of the plane’s skins exploded”.
The plane was directed to Aktau airport, about 450km (280 miles) to the east. Footage shows the plane descending at a speed of 3km (1.9 miles) near the runway, before bursting into flames as it lands.
Kazakh authorities have also recovered a flight recorder and an investigation is underway. Shortly after the accident, reports from Russian state-run television suggested that the cause of the accident was a flock of birds.
But such a collision caused the plane to skid close to the nearest airport, aviation researcher Richard Aboulafia told Reuters. “You can lose control of the plane, but you don’t fly out of control because of it,” he said.
Justin Crump of the Sibylline accident consulting firm said that damage to the interior and exterior of the plane indicated that the Russian air defense system operating in Grozny may have caused the crash.
“It looks like an anti-aircraft missile blast on the back and left side of the plane, if you look at the shrapnel pattern we’re seeing,” he told BBC Radio 4.
Chechnya has already been hit by airstrikes in Ukraine this month and officials in neighboring Ingushetia said the Russian region had been targeted for the first time since the conflict in Ukraine began.
A shopping center was hit when a drone was shot down near North Ossetia, killing one woman, reports said.
The head of the Senate of Kazakhstan, Ashimbayev Maulen, emphasized that the cause of the plane crash near Aktau is still unknown.
“None of these countries – Azerbaijan, Russia or Kazakhstan – want to hide information. Everything will be given to the public,” he said.
Most of the people on board were from Azerbaijan, but there were also people from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Footage shows survivors emerging from the wreckage, some with visible injuries. The injured are being treated in hospital and 11 are in intensive care, the AFP news agency reported.
Embraer, the Brazilian manufacturer, is a smaller rival to Boeing and Airbus, and has a strong safety record.
