Russia warns against “hypotheses” about Azerbaijan Airlines crash

The Russian government has warned against promoting “hypotheses” about the cause of the crash of a Russia-bound passenger plane that killed 38 people in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.

Images of the mangled fuselage appeared to indicate shrapnel damage and some aviation experts suggested the Azerbaijan Airlines plane may have been hit by air defense systems over the Russian republic of Chechnya.

Before crashing near the Kazakh city of Aktau, the plane was diverted across the Caspian Sea, from its destination in Chechnya to western Kazakhstan.

Twenty-nine of the 67 people on board survived. Azerbaijan on Thursday celebrated a national day of mourning for the victims of the crash.

“This is a great tragedy that has become a tremendous pain for the Azerbaijani people,” President Ilham Aliyev said Thursday.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “It would be a mistake to hypothesize before the investigation’s conclusions. We, of course, will not do this and no one should. We have to wait until the investigation is over.” finished.”

The Embraer 190 plane took off on Wednesday morning from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. It was due to fly to Grozny in Chechnya but was diverted due to fog, the airline said.

A surviving passenger told Russian television that he believed the pilot had tried to land twice in dense fog over Grozny before “the third time, something exploded… some of the skin on the plane had come off.”

The plane was diverted to Aktau airport, about 450 kilometers (280 miles) to the east. Footage shows the plane heading toward the ground at high speed 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) from the runway, before bursting into flames upon landing.

Kazakh authorities have recovered the flight data recorder and an investigation is underway. Shortly after the accident, reports on Russian state television said the most likely cause was the impact of a flock of birds.

But that type of collision usually results in the plane sliding toward the nearest airfield, aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia told Reuters news agency. “You can lose control of the plane, but as a consequence it does not suddenly deviate from its course,” he said.

Justin Crump of risk advisory firm Sibylline said the pattern of damage inside and outside the plane indicated active Russian air defense in Grozny may have caused the crash.

“It looks a lot like the detonation of an air defense missile to the rear and to the left of the plane, if you look at the shrapnel pattern we see,” he told BBC Radio 4.

Authorities in the nearby Russian regions of Ingushetia and North Ossetia reported drone attacks on Wednesday morning, according to the Reuters news agency.

The head of the Senate of Kazakhstan, Ashimbayev Maulen, stressed that the causes of the accident are still unknown.

“None of these countries, Azerbaijan, Russia or Kazakhstan, is interested in hiding information. All information will be made available to the public,” he said.

The people on board were mostly Azerbaijani citizens, but there were also some passengers from Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Video footage showed survivors crawling out of the rubble, some with visible injuries. The injured are being treated in hospital and 11 are in intensive care, the AFP news agency reported.

Embraer, a Brazilian manufacturer, is a smaller rival to Boeing and Airbus and has a strong safety record.