Azerbaijan airline blames ‘external interference’ for plane crash

Azerbaijan Airlines says preliminary results of an investigation into the crash of its plane in Kazakhstan on December 25 attribute it to “external physical and technical interference.”

Thirty-eight people died when the Embraer plane fell at high speed and burst into flames 3 kilometers from the Aktau airport runway.

The plane had originally attempted to land at Grozny airport in southern Russia, but witnesses reported an explosion before it was diverted across the Caspian Sea towards Kazakhstan.

The head of Russia’s civil aviation agency said Friday that the situation in the Chechen capital was “very complicated” and that a closed skies protocol had been established.

“Ukrainian combat drones were launching terrorist attacks against civilian infrastructure in the cities of Grozny and Vladikavkaz,” Dmitry Yadrov, head of Rosaviatsia, said in a video statement published on the Russian Tass news agency.

“For this reason, a ‘carpet plan’ has been introduced in the Grozny airport area, which provides for the immediate departure of all aircraft from the specified area,” he said. “In addition, there was dense fog in the Grozny airport area.”

Azerbaijan Airlines did not detail the physical and technical interference, and the government in Baku has avoided directly accusing Russia, possibly to avoid antagonizing President Vladimir Putin.

However, Azerbaijan’s aviation experts and pro-government media believe the plane was damaged by shrapnel from a Russian air defense missile explosion.

“These are missile fragments that damaged the hydraulic system. The plane’s controls work based on the hydraulic system,” veteran Azerbaijani pilot Tahir Agaguliev told the BBC.

Flight attendant Zulfuqar Asadov, one of the 29 survivors of the crashed plane, told local media that the plane was “hit by some kind of external attack.”

“The impact caused panic inside. We tried to calm them down, make them sit down. At that moment, there was another blow and I hurt my arm.”

In a social media post, Azerbaijan Airlines said it was suspending flights to seven Russian cities in response to the crash “for safety reasons.”

It had already suspended flights to Grozny and Makhachkala in neighboring Dagestan, but has now added the cities of Sochi, Volgograd, Ufa, Samara and Mineralnye Vody.

Meanwhile, Israel’s flagship airline El Al suspended all flights to Moscow, citing developments in Russian airspace.

Ukrainian presidential spokesman Andriy Yermak has said Russia should be held responsible for the accident.

The Kremlin declined to comment on reports that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane was hit by Russian air defense.

“An investigation is underway into this air incident and until conclusions are drawn as a result of the investigation, we do not consider ourselves authorized to make any assessment,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Vigils have been held in Azerbaijan to honor the pilots, who are credited with saving lives by managing to land part of the plane, despite having died in the crash.

Kazakh authorities have been treating the injured and working closely with Azerbaijan on the investigation. However, they have refused to give details of the accident investigation.

Reports in Baku suggest that both Russia and Kazakhstan proposed that a committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a Russian-dominated regional organization, investigate the accident, but Azerbaijan had instead demanded an international investigation rather than one involving to former Soviet countries.