Plane crash: Plane crash: Azerbaijan increases pressure on Moscow

After a passenger plane crashed in Kazakhstan with 38 deaths, Azerbaijan is increasing pressure on Russia to help investigate the accident. For the first time, the government in Baku said that the Azerbaijani plane had been hit by a weapon in Russian airspace over Grozny. “The investigation will clarify what type of weapon the external influence was used,” said Transport Minister Rashad Nabiyev in Baku, according to the Azerbaijani state news agency Azertag.

Kazakhstan will do everything to investigate Wednesday’s crash comprehensively and objectively, said President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in a telephone conversation with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev. The Azerbaijan Airlines plane with 67 people on board was supposed to fly from Baku to Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya. However, it was damaged during the landing approach.

Damage to the wreckage and witness statements suggested that the plane was damaged from the outside, Azerbaijani minister Nabiyev said. “Accordingly, there was a sound of explosion outside, and then something hit the plane.” At the time, Russian air defenses were fighting Ukrainian drones in the North Caucasus. Nabiyev did not say who his government believed had fired. According to unofficial information, it is assumed that Russian anti-aircraft fire in Baku missed.

USA sees evidence of accidental shooting

The USA also made this suspicion public. “We have seen some early indications that may indicate that the jet was brought down by a Russian anti-aircraft system,” said National Security Council Communications Director John Kirby.

Moscow has so far warned against speculation. “The situation on that day and during those hours in the area of ​​Grozny airport was very complicated,” said the head of the Russian aviation agency Rozawiatsiya, Dmitry Yadrov. “Ukrainian combat drones carried out terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure in the Grozny and Vladikavkaz regions at that time.”

It was the first time that an official Russian body made a connection between the drone alarm and the ill-fated flight. Grozny airport was closed, said Jadrow.

Many questions from Baku to Moscow

Azerbaijani Minister Nabiyev listed other questions for Moscow. After the damage, the plane flew over Russia’s Makhachkala airport, he said. Investigators would have to clarify whether an emergency landing there should be approved or rejected. It also needs to be clarified why the aircraft’s GPS positioning was disrupted.

Rosawiatsiya boss Jadrov said that the pilots had been offered several alternative Russian airports. But they wanted to fly over the Caspian Sea to Aktau in Kazakhstan. Azerbaijani media cast doubt on this account. During the attempted landing in Aktau, the Embraer 190 aircraft crashed. At least 29 people survived, although many only with serious injuries. In Azerbaijan, victims of the accident were buried on Friday with great public sympathy.

Embraer specialists at the scene of the accident

Specialists from the Brazilian manufacturer Embraer have arrived in Aktau to help investigate the cause of the crash, Kazakh state news agency Kazinform reported.

Western military experts suspected it had been hit by an anti-aircraft missile because of the many small holes in the rear of the wreck. Apparently, bullets in the form of cube-shaped shrapnel had pierced the plane, said Colonel Markus Reisner, Ukraine expert for the Austrian Armed Forces, on ORF radio. It was probably not a direct hit, but rather a close hit. The target itself is not hit, but rather the bullet explodes in the immediate vicinity.

Using a Russian Buk anti-aircraft system, pro-Russian forces accidentally shot down a Malaysian Boeing over eastern Ukraine in 2014. At that time, 289 people died.