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Azerbaijan Airlines says preliminary results of an investigation into the Dec. 25 crash of its plane in Kazakhstan have indicated “physical and technical external interference.”
Thirty-eight people died when the Embraer plane went down at high speed, bursting into flames 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) short of the Aktau Airport runway.
The plane initially tried to land at Grozny airport in southern Russia, but witnesses said there was an explosion before it was diverted across the Caspian Sea to 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-sky protocol was in place.
“Ukrainian combat drones carried out terrorist attacks against civilian infrastructure in the cities of Grozny and Vladikavkaz,” Dmitry Yadrov, the head of Rosaviatsia, said in a video statement released to Russia’s TASS news agency.
“Because of this, a ‘carpet plan’ was introduced in the area of Grozny Airport, which provides for the immediate departure of all aircraft from the specified area,” he said. In addition, there was dense fog in the area of the Grozny airport.
Azerbaijan Airlines did not provide details of the physical and technical intervention, and the government in Baku avoided directly blaming Russia, possibly to avoid antagonizing President Vladimir Putin.
However, aviation experts and pro-government media in Azerbaijan believe the plane was damaged by shrapnel from an explosion of a Russian air defense missile.
“These are fragments of rockets that damaged the hydraulic system. The control of the aircraft works on the basis of hydraulics,” veteran Azerbaijani pilot Tahir Agaguliyev told Azerbaijani media.
Flight attendant Zulfukar Asadov, who was among the 29 survivors of the crashed plane, told local media that the plane was “hit by some external impact”.
“The impact caused panic inside. We tried to calm them down, settle them down. At that moment there was another impact and my arm was injured.”
In a social media post, Azerbaijan Airlines said it was suspending flights to seven Russian cities in response to the crash “for security reasons”.
It had already suspended flights to Grozny and Makhachkala in neighboring Dagestan, but now added the cities of Sochi, Volgograd, Ufa, Samara and Mineralnye Vody.
Israel’s flagship airline El Al has meanwhile suspended all flights to Moscow, citing developments in Russian airspace.
Ukrainian presidential spokesman Andriy Yermak said Russia should be held responsible for the crash.
The Kremlin refused to comment on the information that the Azerbaijani Airlines plane was hit by Russian air defense.
“An investigation into this aviation incident is underway, and until the conclusions of the investigation are made, we do not consider ourselves entitled to make any assessments,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Vigils were held in Azerbaijan to honor the pilots, who are credited with saving lives by landing part of the plane despite being killed in the crash.
Kazakh authorities are treating the injured and working closely with Azerbaijan on the investigation. However, they declined to provide details of the crash investigation.
Reports in Baku indicate that both Russia and Kazakhstan have proposed a commission from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) – a regional body dominated by Russia – to investigate the crash, but Azerbaijan has instead asked for an international investigation, rather than one involving former Soviet countries.
