Azerbaijani plane crash due to external interference

The crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines airliner, which killed 38 people on Wednesday, was due to “external interference”, according to the preliminary conclusions of the investigation announced on Friday, with experts and Western media favoring the possibility of a Russian anti-aircraft missile to explain this tragedy.

Russia confirmed that Grozny, the capital of Chechnya where the aircraft attempted to land twice without success before being redirected towards Kazakhstan, was the target on the day of the tragedy of a Ukrainian drone attack in a context of thick fog.

Seeing Russia’s “obvious” responsibility for the images of the crashed plane, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for a “thorough investigation to establish the truth.”

“The preliminary results of the investigation into the Embraer 190 crash” indicate “external, physical and technical interference,” Azerbaijan Airlines said on Telegram. The company also announces the suspension of flights to several Russian cities.

“An investigation is underway to establish whether it was a Russian air defense strike or another cause,” Azerbaijani MP Rassim Moussabekov told AFP, while emphasizing that “we see in the photos and images videos the plane’s fuselage with holes that are normally caused by air defense missiles.

He called on Russia to apologize, “punish the guilty and promise that such a thing would not happen again”, accusing Moscow of having redirected the plane after the incident towards Kazakhstan, on the other side of the Caspian Sea.

The aircraft, an Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 with 67 people on board, was flying on Wednesday between Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, and Grozny, capital of the Russian Caucasian republic of Chechnya.

It crashed and caught fire in still unclear circumstances near Aktau, a port on the Caspian Sea located in western Kazakhstan and far from its destination, killing 38 people, according to the authorities of this country. Central Asia.

While experts and Western media point to the hypothesis of a crash due to a Russian anti-aircraft missile fire, the Kremlin on Friday refused any comment “before the conclusions of the investigation”. The Russian aviation agency, Rosaviatsia, explained that the situation at Grozny airport that day was “very difficult”.

“At that time, Ukrainian military drones were carrying out terrorist attacks against civilian infrastructure in the cities of Grozny and Vladikavkaz,” Rosaviatsia boss Dmitry Yadrov said on Telegram.

He also reported “thick fog” which prevented all visibility “at an altitude of 500 meters”. “The captain made two attempts to land in Grozny, which failed. Other airports are proposed to him. He decides to go to Aktau airport in Kazakhstan, Mr. Yadrov said.

Grozny has been attacked by Ukrainian drones several times since Russia’s assault on Ukraine began in 2022.

Mr. Yadrov assured that Russia intended to “fully cooperate in the investigation into this tragedy” with Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, two former Soviet republics on good terms with Moscow.

The manufacturer of the device, the Brazilian Embraer, indicated in a statement to AFP that it was “monitoring the situation closely” and being “fully committed to supporting the competent authorities”.

None of the countries involved have yet publicly confirmed the missile hypothesis, fueled by images of impacts on the wreckage of the aircraft, and according to which the aircraft was fired upon during its approach to the Grozny airport, before managing to fly to Kazakhstan where he crashed.

Azerbaijan Airlines initially claimed that the plane had hit a flock of birds, before withdrawing this information.

This version was also mentioned on Wednesday by Rosaviatsia. The Kazakh Ministry of Transport mentioned on Thursday the “explosion of a balloon” on board.

“There was an explosion. That’s for sure. Everyone heard it,” confirmed one of the Russian survivors, of Tajik origin, Soubkhonkoul Rakhimov, to the Russian television channel RT. But “I wouldn’t say it was inside the plane,” he added, specifying that his life jacket had been “pierced by a shrapnel.”

On board the plane were 37 Azerbaijanis, six Kazakhs, three Kyrgyz and 16 Russians, as well as five crew members, according to the Kazakh Transport Ministry. Twenty-nine of them survived.

“I never thought my father could survive after such an explosion,” Konoul Assadova, daughter of Azerbaijan Airlines steward Zulfougar Assadov, one of the survivors, told AFP.

“His back hurts, he can’t speak much, but he has no fractures,” said this woman, after being able to see her father “for five minutes” in the hospital where he is after was repatriated Thursday to Baku, with 13 other injured Azerbaijanis.