Azerbaijan plane crash: Did Russia shoot it down?

December 26, 2024 17:15

The Russian government has cautioned against promoting "hypotheses" about the cause of the crash of a Russia-bound passenger plane that killed 38 people in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.

Footage of the wrecked fuselage appeared to indicate shrapnel damage and some aviation experts suggested the Azerbaijani Airlines plane may have been been hit by air defence systems over the Russian republic of Chechnya.

Before it went down near the Kazakh city of Aktau, the plane was diverted across the Caspian Sea, from its destination in Chechnya to western Kazakhstan.

Twenty nine of the 67 people on board survived. Azerbaijan held a national day of mourning on Thursday for the victims of the crash.

Kazakh authorities have recovered the flight data recorder and an investigation in under way. Shortly after the crash, reports from Russian state-controlled TV said the most likely cause was a strike from a flock of birds.

But that kind of collision typically results in the plane gliding towards in the nearest airfield, aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia told Reuters news agency. "You can lose control of the plane, but you don't fly wildly off course as a consequence," he said.

Justin Crump of risk advisory company Sibylline said the pattern of damage inside and outside the plane indicated that Russian air defence active in Grozny may have caused the crash.

"It looks very much like the detonation of an air defence missile to the rear and to the left of the aircraft, if you look at the pattern of shrapnel that we see," he told BBC Radio 4.

-- BBC

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