Aviation experts said Thursday that Russian aerial defense occurrence was apt responsible for nan Azerbaijani level clang nan time before that killed 38 group and near each 29 survivors injured.
Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 was en way from Azerbaijan’s superior of Baku to nan Russian metropolis of Grozny successful nan North Caucasus connected Wednesday erstwhile it was diverted for reasons still unclear and collapsed while making an effort to onshore successful Aktau successful Kazakhstan aft flying eastbound crossed nan Caspian Sea.
The level went down astir 3 kilometers (2 miles) from Aktau. Cellphone footage circulating online appeared to show nan craft making a steep descent earlier crashing into nan crushed and exploding successful a fireball.
Other footage showed a portion of its fuselage ripped distant from nan wings and nan remainder of nan craft lying upside down connected nan grass.
Azerbaijan mourned nan clang victims pinch nationalist flags astatine half-staff crossed connected Thursday. Traffic stopped astatine noon, and sirens sounded from ships and trains arsenic it observed a nationwide infinitesimal of silence.
Speaking astatine a news convention Wednesday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that it was excessively soon to estimate connected nan reasons down nan crash, but said that nan upwind had forced nan level to alteration from its planned course.
“The accusation provided to maine is that nan level changed its people betwixt Baku and Grozny owed to worsening upwind conditions and headed to Aktau airport, wherever it collapsed upon landing,” he said.
Russia’s civilian aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said that preliminary accusation indicated nan pilots diverted to Aktau aft a vertebrate onslaught led to an emergency connected board.
Authorities successful Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia were tight-lipped astir a imaginable origin of nan clang but a lawmaker successful Azerbaijan blamed Moscow. Rasim Musabekov told nan Azerbaijani news agency Turan that nan level was fired connected while successful nan skies complete Grozny and urged Russia to connection an charismatic apology.
“Those who did this must look criminal charges,” Musabekov was quoted by Turan arsenic saying, adding that compensations to nan victims should besides beryllium paid. “If it doesn’t happen, relations will beryllium affected.”
As nan charismatic clang investigation started, immoderate experts pointed retired that holes seen successful nan plane’s tail conception could bespeak that it could person travel nether occurrence from Russian aerial defense systems fending disconnected a Ukrainian drone attack.
Ukrainian drones had antecedently attacked Grozny, nan superior of nan Russian republic of Chechnya, and different regions successful nan country’s North Caucasus. An charismatic successful Chechnya said different drone onslaught connected nan region was fended disconnected connected Wednesday, though national authorities didn’t study it.
Mark Zee of OPSGroup, which monitors nan world’s airspace and airports for risks, said that nan study of nan images of fragments of nan collapsed level bespeak that it was almost surely deed by a surface-to-air missile, aliases SAM.
“Much much to investigate, but astatine precocious level we’d put nan probability of it being a SAM onslaught connected nan craft astatine being good into nan 90-99% bracket,” he said.
Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation information patient based successful nan United Kingdom, warned its clients that nan “Azerbaijan Airlines formation was apt changeable down by a Russian subject air-defense system.” Osprey provides study for carriers still flying into Russia aft Western airlines halted their flights during nan war.
Osprey CEO Andrew Nicholson said that nan institution had issued much than 200 alerts regarding drone attacks and aerial defense systems successful Russia during nan war.
“This incident is simply a stark reminder of why we do what we do,” Nicholson posted online. “It is achy to cognize that contempt our efforts, lives were mislaid successful a measurement that could person been avoided.”
Yan Matveyev, an independent Russian subject expert, noted that images of nan collapsed plane’s tail uncover nan harm compatible pinch shrapnel from a mini surface-to-air missiles, specified arsenic nan Pantsyr-S1 aerial defense system.
“It looks for illustration nan tail conception of nan level was damaged by immoderate rocket fragments,” he said.
Matveyev added that it remains unclear why nan pilots decided to alert hundreds of miles eastbound crossed nan Caspian Sea alternatively of trying to onshore astatine a person airdrome successful Russia aft nan level was hit.
“Perhaps immoderate of nan plane’s systems kept moving for immoderate clip and nan unit believed that they could make it and onshore normally,” Matveyev said, adding that nan unit could besides person faced restrictions connected landing astatine different venue successful Russia.
Caliber, an Azerbaijani news website pinch bully authorities connections, besides claimed that nan airliner was fired upon by a Russian Pantsyr-S aerial defense strategy arsenic it was approaching Grozny. It questioned why Russian authorities grounded to adjacent nan airdrome contempt nan evident drone ambush successful nan area. Khamzat Kadyrov, caput of Chechnya’s Security Council, said that aerial defenses downed drones attacking nan region connected Wednesday.
Caliber besides wondered why Russian authorities didn’t let nan level to make an emergency landing successful Grozny aliases different Russian airports adjacent aft it was hit.
Asked astir nan claims that nan level had been fired upon by aerial defense assets, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “it would beryllium incorrect to make hypotheses earlier investigators make their verdict.”
Kazakhstan’s parliamentary speaker, Maulen Ashimbayev, besides warned against rushing to conclusions based connected pictures of nan plane’s fragments, describing nan allegations of aerial defense occurrence arsenic unfounded and unethical.
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According to Kazakh officials, those aboard nan level included 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhs and 3 Kyrgyzstan nationals. Russia’s Emergencies Ministry connected Thursday flew 9 Russian survivors to Moscow for treatment.
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Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell successful Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Aida Sultanova successful London contributed to this report.