According to Azerbaijani Prosecutor General Kamran Aliyev, the head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, told him that “intensive measures were being taken to identify the culprits and bring them to criminal responsibility for their actions.” The incident prompted several airlines to cancel their flights to Russia, including the Israeli company El Al, which announced on Monday the suspension until the end of March of its flights to Moscow. Moscow also promised to “conduct a complete, exhaustive and objective investigation” into this accident, in addition to the investigations carried out in Kazakhstan, where the aircraft crashed, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor’s Office said in a press release.
Russia has not admitted its responsibility for this crash, which left 38 dead, despite a request to this effect from Azerbaijan. According to the Azerbaijani Prosecutor’s Office, Moscow nevertheless “provided the necessary support to the prosecutors sent to Grozny”, the capital of Chechnya, where the plane had tried to land unsuccessfully twice before crashing in Aktau, other side of the Caspian Sea. Investigations are also being carried out at the accident site “with the participation of professional investigators and experts from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Brazil”, the latter country being the manufacturer of the Embraer aircraft.
Black boxes. The Kazakh Ministry of Transport announced on Monday that it had sent the black boxes of the aircraft to Brazil, where the Center for Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents (Cenipa) is located, which will be responsible for examining them. “The commission of inquiry into the plane crash flew to Brazil. The black boxes will be delivered to Cenipa,” he indicated on Telegram, after having announced the day before his intention to send these flight recorders to this country.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday that the Azerbaijan Airlines airliner, which was flying from Baku to Grozny, had been “shot” over Russian territory. He accused Moscow of wanting to hide its responsibility for the crash and demanded a public apology and compensation. Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Mr. Aliyev on Saturday and admitted that air defense fire had taken place on the day of the crash due to a Ukrainian drone attack, but without acknowledging that the plane had been hit.
© Agence France-Presse
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