According to Russian military bloggers, the damage suffered by the Embraer 190 corresponds to impacts from anti-aircraft guns. The company Osprey Flight Solutions, specializing in risk analysis in the field of aviation, also suspects that the plane was shot down, indicates the Wall Street Journal.
“Video footage of the wreckage and the security conditions of the airspace over southwest Russia indicate that it is possible that the aircraft was hit by some form of anti-aircraft artillery,” says Osprey Flight Solutions.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev declared a day of national mourning in Azerbaijan on Thursday. The bodies of passengers and crew members who lost their lives in the crash will be transferred to the country in the near future, Azerbaijan Airlines and the Azerbaijan Ministry of Emergency Situations reported on X.
Injured passengers will also be transported to Azerbaijan on a special flight of the airline, provided that their health permits, Azerbaijan Airlines added on the social network. According to the Kazakh news site Tengrinews, the injured are Azerbaijanis, Russians, and Kyrgyzstanis. Nine injured Russian passengers, including a child, were repatriated for treatment in Moscow, the Russian news agency Tass said. Their condition is considered worrying.
The Kazakh authorities immediately denounced “speculation” surrounding the accident, while no official hypothesis on the origins of the crash was put forward Thursday morning. “Real experts are taking care of (the investigation) and they will deliver their conclusions. Neither Kazakhstan, nor Russia, nor Azerbaijan have any interest in hiding information,” said the president of the Kazakh Senate, Maoulen Ashimbaev, quoted by the official Russian agency Tass.
“We must wait for the end of the investigation,” stressed Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov.
Specialists from the Kazakh Ministry of Transport, as well as a delegation from the Azerbaijan Civil Aviation Agency and representatives of Azerbaijan Airlines are participating in the investigation. Officials from Embraer and the Brazilian Center for Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents (CENIPA) are also expected in Kazakhstan, according to Kazakh authorities.
