A sensitive investigation with decisive conclusions. Thursday, the day after the crash of Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 near Aktau, in western Kazakhstan, all eyes are on the authorities responsible for drawing conclusions from this deadly accident. Among the sixty-two passengers and five staff members on board the plane on Wednesday, thirty-eight people lost their lives.
Azerbaijan was quick to act to shed light on this tragedy. A state commission, responsible for investigating the causes of the accident, was created following the crash on Wednesday. Ali Assadov, appointed head of this commission, indicated to the state agency Azertac that the President of the Republic Ilham Aliyev had taken this investigation “under his personal control”. A team went to the site to “work on the scene”, indicated the Azerbaijani general prosecutor’s office.
Commissions created urgently
On the Kazakh side, the Ministry of the Interior has opened an investigation for “violation of air transport safety and operational rules”. “By government decree, a government commission was created to investigate the causes of the accident,” reported the press service of the local government to the KazTAG agency. It was decreed by Kazakh Prime Minister Oljas Bektenov.
This commission is made up of the Deputy Prime Minister of the Mangystau region, where the crash of flight J2-8243 took place, the leadership of the Ministries of Emergency Situations, Transport, Foreign Affairs, Interior, Labor and Health. Azerbaijani and Kazakh authorities work closely together, say government sources in both countries.
Russia, for its part, is not officially intervening in this investigation, despite its diplomatic friendships with Kazakhstan and the presence of Russian nationals on the plane. She nevertheless dispatched a plane with medical personnel and equipment on Wednesday. On Thursday, an Ilyushin-76 plane brought nine injured Russian nationals, including a child, from Aktau to Moscow on Thursday, according to the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations.
The final conclusions of the investigation have not been communicated. However, an Azerbaijani government source told Euronews on Thursday that the results of the preliminary investigation indicate that a Russian anti-aircraft missile was the cause of the crash. The latter, which was flying over Grozny, the Chechen city where flight J2-8243 was to land, is said to have exploded in mid-flight near the machine, thus damaging the aircraft. This same source claims that the crew was refused an emergency landing at Russian airports, which would explain the change of course to try to land near Aktau.
“Neither Kazakhstan, nor Russia, nor Azerbaijan have any interest in hiding information”
Other military and aviation experts, relying on images filmed by passengers on the plane and on the impacts observed on the debris, draw the same conclusions as this Azerbaijani source. Speculations that both Russia and Kazakhstan have tried to extinguish.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov assured Thursday that we had to “wait for the end of the investigation.” “It would be inappropriate to make any assumptions prior to the findings of the investigation. We will not do it and no one should do it,” he insisted.
The president of the Kazakh Senate, the upper house of the Parliament of Kazakhstan, Maulen Ashimbayev, assured him that it was “not possible” to say for the moment the cause of this catastrophe. “Real experts are looking into it and they will make their conclusions. Neither Kazakhstan, nor Russia, nor Azerbaijan have any interest in hiding information,” he said, in comments relayed by the official Russian agency TASS.
