Azerbaijan mourns the victims of air accidents. Could Russia have damaged the plane? – Nationally
Azerbaijan on Thursday observed a day of mourning for the victims of a plane crash that killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured as speculation intensified over the possible cause of the disaster, with some experts saying the plane was damaged in self-defense by Russian air defenses. fire.
An Embraer 190 of Azerbaijan Airlines was on its way from the capital of Azerbaijan Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted for unknown reasons and crashed while trying to land in Aktau in Kazakhstan after flying east across the road. The Caspian Sea.
The plane went down about 3 kilometers (about 2 miles) from Aktau. Mobile footage circulating online appeared to show the plane making a descent before crashing into the ground in a fireball. Some pictures show part of its fuselage torn from the wings and the rest of the plane lying face down on the grass.
As the official investigation into the crash begins, speculation has mounted about the possible cause, with some experts saying holes seen in the tail section of the plane may indicate it may have been hit by Russian air defense systems that are defending against Ukrainian drone attacks.
Ukrainian drones have attacked Grozny, the capital of the Russian region of Chechnya, and other regions in the North of the Caucasus. An official in Chechnya said another drone attack in the region had been foiled on Wednesday, although authorities did not report it.
On Thursday, national flags were lowered across Azerbaijan, traffic across the country came to a halt for the day, and signals were heard from ships and trains as the country observed a moment of silence across the country.
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said that it is too soon to speculate on the causes of the accident, but he said that the weather forced the plane to change its planned route.
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“The information given to me is that the plane changed its route between Baku and Grozny due to bad weather and headed for Aktau Airport, where it crashed where it is landing,” he said.
Russia’s aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said preliminary information indicates that the pilots diverted to Aktau after the bird strike that led to the emergency.
According to Kazakh officials, 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russians, six Kazakhs and three Kyrgyzstans were on board the plane. Russia’s Emergencies Ministry on Thursday airlifted 9 Russian survivors to Moscow for treatment.
Mark Zee of OPSGroup, which monitors the vulnerability of the world’s airfields and airports, said analysis of photographs of fragments of the crashed plane showed it was almost certainly hit by a surface-to-air missile, or SAM.
“There is still a lot to investigate, but at a high level we can state that it may have been a SAM attack on the plane since it entered 90-99% of the bracket,” he said.
Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security company based in the United Kingdom, warned its customers that “Azerbaijan Airlines flight may have been shot down by a Russian military air defense system.” Osprey provides an analysis of the carriers flying to Russia after Western airlines grounded their aircraft during the war.
Osprey CEO Andrew Nicholson said the company had issued more than 200 warnings about drone attacks and air defense systems in Russia during the war.
“This incident is a powerful reminder of why we do what we do,” Nicholson wrote online. “It is sad to know that despite our efforts, people’s lives were lost in a way that could have been avoided.”
Caliber, an Azerbaijani news website, said the plane was shot down by a Russian Pantsyr-S air defense system as it approached Grozny. It asked why the Russian authorities failed to close the airport even though it appeared that there was a permanent attack on the area. Khamzat Kadyrov, head of Chechnya’s Security Council, said self-defense aircraft had shot down drones that were attacking the region on Wednesday.
Caliber also questioned why Russian authorities did not allow the plane to make an emergency landing in Grozny or other nearby Russian airports after it was hit.
Asked about the allegations that the plane was shot down by air defense equipment, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “it would be wrong to speculate before the investigators make a decision.”
The Speaker of Kazakhstan’s parliament, Maulen Ashimbayev, also warned against jumping to conclusions based on images of the plane’s fragments, describing allegations of air defense fire as baseless and “immoral.”
Other officials in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan also avoided commenting on the possible cause of the accident, saying it would be up to the investigators to find out how.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
