Azerbaijan Airlines said the early findings of an inquiry into its plane’s crash in Kazakhstan on December 25 have blamed physical and technical external interference.
Thirty-eight persons were killed when the Embraer plane crashed at high speed, erupting into flames 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) short of the runway at Aktau Airport.
The plane had attempted to land at Grozny Airport in southern Russia, but witnesses reported an explosion before being redirected across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan.
The head of Russia’s civil aviation agency said on Friday that the situation in the Chechen capital was “very complicated” and that a closed-skies protocol had been put in place.
Azerbaijan Airlines did not detail the physical and technical interference, and the government in Baku has avoided directly accusing Russia, possibly avoiding antagonising President Vladimir Putin.
However, aviation experts and pro-government media in Azerbaijan believe the plane was damaged by shrapnel from Russian air-defence missile explosion.
“These are missile fragments that damaged the hydraulic system. The plane’s controls operate based on hydraulics,” veteran Azerbaijani pilot veteran pilot Tahir Agaguliev told Azerbaijani media.
Flight attendant Zulfuqar Asadov, who was among 29 survivors on the crashed plane, told local media that the plane was “hit by some kind of external strike.”
It had already halted flights to Grozny and Makhachkala in neighbouring Dagestan but has now added the cities of Sochi, Volgograd, Ufa, SamaraMineralnye Vody
Israel’s flagship airline, El Al, has meanwhile suspended all flights to Moscow, citing developments in Russian airspace.
Ukrainian presidential spokesman Andriy Yermak has said Russia must be held responsible for the crash.
The Kremlin has refused to comment on reports that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane was hit by Russian air defence.
Vigils have been organized in Azerbaijan to remember the pilots, who are credited with saving lives by successfully landing a portion of the jet despite being killed in the disaster.
Kazakh authorities have been treating the injured and cooperating with Azerbaijan on the investigation. However, they have declined to provide information about their crash investigation.
According to reports in Baku, both Russia and Kazakhstan proposed that a committee from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a regional organisation dominated by Russia, investigate the crash, but Azerbaijan demanded an international inquiry rather than one involving former Soviet countries.
