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Azerbaijan marked a national day of mourning on Thursday for the victims of a plane crash that killed 38 people and injured all 29 survivors as speculation mounted about the possible cause of the disaster, with some experts saying the plane was damaged by Russian anti-aircraft fire.
The Embraer 190 of the Azerbaijani aircraft was on its way from Azerbaijan capital Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted for still unclear reasons and crashed while trying to land in Aktau, Kazakhstan, after flying east across the Caspian Sea.
The plane went down about 3 kilometers (about 2 miles) from Aktau. Cellphone footage circulating online appears to have shown the craft descending steeply before hitting the ground in a fireball. Other footage shows part of the fuselage torn from the wing, and the rest of the plane lying upside down in the grass.
As the official investigation into the crash began, a number of theories emerged as to the possible cause, with some experts claiming that the holes seen in the tail section of the plane likely indicated that it could have come under fire from Russian air defense systems that were fending off a Ukrainian drone strike. .
Ukrainian drones have previously attacked Grozny, the provincial capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, and other regions in the country’s North Caucasus. An official in Chechnya said another drone strike in the region was repulsed on Wednesday, although federal authorities did not report it.
On Thursday, national flags were flown at half-mast across Azerbaijan, traffic across the country was halted at noon and signals sounded from ships and trains as the country observed a minute’s silence across the country.
Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said it was too early to speculate on the cause of the crash, but said weather had forced the plane to change its planned course.
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“The information I received is that the plane changed course between Baku and Grozny due to worsening weather conditions and headed for Aktau airport, where it crashed after landing,” he said.
Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said preliminary information indicated the pilots diverted to Aktau after a bird strike caused an emergency on the plane.
According to Kazakh officials, 42 citizens of Azerbaijan, 16 citizens of Russia, six citizens of Kazakhstan and three citizens of Kyrgyzstan were on board. On Thursday, the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations sent nine surviving Russians to Moscow for treatment.
Mark Zee of OPSGroup, which monitors the world’s airspace and airports for risk, said analysis of images of fragments of the downed plane showed it was almost certainly hit by a surface-to-air missile, or SAM.
“There’s still a lot to investigate, but at a high level we’d put the probability of this being a SAM attack on the aircraft in the 90-99% range,” he said.
Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security company based in the United Kingdom, warned its clients that “the Azerbaijan Airlines flight was likely shot down by a Russian military air defense system.” Osprey provides analysis for carriers still flying to Russia after Western airlines suspended their flights during the war.
Osprey chief executive Andrew Nicholson said the company had issued more than 200 warnings about drone attacks and air defense systems in Russia during the war.
“This incident is a powerful reminder of why we do what we do,” Nicholson wrote online. “It is painful to know that despite our best efforts, lives were lost in a way that could have been avoided.”
Caliber, an Azerbaijani news website, claims the plane was fired upon by a Russian Pantsyr-S air defense system as it approached Grozny. A question was raised as to why the Russian authorities failed to close the airport despite an apparent drone attack on the area. Khamzat Kadyrov, head of Chechnya’s Security Council, said air defenses shot down drones attacking the region on Wednesday.
Caliber also asked why Russian authorities did not allow the plane to make an emergency landing at Grozny or another nearby Russian airport after it was hit.
Asked about claims that the plane was fired upon by anti-aircraft defenses, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “it would be wrong to speculate before the investigators make their verdict.”
Kazakh Parliament Speaker Maulen Ashimbayev also warned against jumping to conclusions based on images of the plane’s fragments, describing allegations of air defense fire as baseless and “unethical”.
Other officials in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan similarly avoided comment on the possible cause of the crash, saying investigators would determine that.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
