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• US says Russian air defences may have hit the plane
• Kremlin cautions on ‘hypotheses’ over the crash
BAKU/WASHINGTON/MOSCOW: Azerbaijani authorities believe the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane in Kazakhstan that killed 38 people was caused by a Russian surface-to-air missile, several media reported on Thursday.
The jet was en route from the country’s capital Baku to the city of Grozny in Chechnya, southern Russia, on Wednesday but crashed near Aktau in Kazakhstan.
Euronews cited Azerbaijani government sources as saying that “shrapnel hit the passengers and cabin crew as it exploded next to the aircraft mid-flight”. Military and aviation experts have pointed to apparent shrapnel damage on the fuselage of the plane.
US accusation
He said the damage was “reminiscent” of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was downed with a surface-to-air missile by Russia-backed rebels over eastern Ukraine in 2014.
A US official said that early indications suggest a Russian anti-aircraft system struck an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan. The comments by the US official came after media reports that Azerbaijani authorities believe a Russian surface-to-air missile caused Wednesday’s crash of the jet traveling from Baku to Grozny in Chechnya, southern Russia.
Euronews also cited its sources saying the damaged plane “was not allowed to land at any Russian airports despite the pilots’ requests for an emergency landing”. They said the plane was instead ordered to fly across the Caspian Sea to Aktau — far off its original route.
Anadolu news agency carried a similar report citing the preliminary results of the investigation, saying “the plane was attacked by a Pantsir missile system” as it approached Grozny.
Ukrainian drone strikes have been registered in Chechnya in recent weeks, and there was reported drone activity in nearby Ingushetia and North Ossetia before the crash.
“The aircraft’s communication system was completely paralysed due to the use of Russian electronic warfare systems, which resulted in the plane disappearing from radars while in Russian airspace,” Anadolu reported.
The New York Times reported that “two Azerbaijanis briefed on a government inquiry said that Azerbaijani officials now believe that a Russian Pantsir-S defence system damaged the plane”.
The specialist website Flightradar24 said the flight had experienced “significant GPS interference”. It said the plane “stopped sending positional data” for a few minutes.
The plane was carrying 62 passengers and five crew members. A former expert at France’s BEA air accident investigation agency, also said there appeared to be “a lot of shrapnel” damage on the wreckage.
Kremlin reaction
“I’ll never forget their look, full of pain and despair,” said Elmira. “A girl pleaded: ‘Save my mother, my mother is back there’.” Kazakh Senate speaker Maulen Ashimbayev condemned “speculation” about what happened.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier on Thursday cautioned against “hypotheses” about the crash before the official Kazakh investigation is completed.
“It would be wrong to make any hypotheses before the investigation’s conclusions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Russian military expert Yury Podolyaka said holes seen in the wreckage of the plane were similar to the damage caused by an “anti-aircraft missile system”. “Everything points to that,” he wrote.
Bloodied survivors
A Kazakh woman told the local branch of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) she was near where the plane crashed and rushed to the site to help survivors.
“They were covered in blood. They were crying. They were calling for help,” said the woman, who gave her name as Elmira. She said they saved some teenagers.
Eleven of the injured are in intensive care, the Kazakh health ministry said. Azerbaijan state news agency Azertac reported that 12 of the survivors were being flown to Azerbaijan. A plane carrying nine injured Russian nationals, including a child, also arrived at Zhukovsky airport in the Moscow region on Thursday, Russia’s emergency situations ministry said.
Day of mourning
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev declared on Thursday a day of mourning and cancelled a planned visit to Russia for an informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a grouping of former Soviet nations.
Aliyev’s office said the president “ordered the prompt initiation of urgent measures to investigate the causes of the disaster”.
Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2024
