Russia and Kazakhstan sought to dampen speculation about the cause of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash, as the Kremlin urged people to wait for the results of the investigation.
A Ukrainian national security official claimed the crash, which killed 38 people on Christmas Day, was caused by Russian air defense fire.
The plane, which was on its way from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to the Russian city of Grozny in Chechnya, crashed in a field near Aktau in Kazakhstan after deviating hundreds of miles from its planned route. Twenty-nine people survived.
A video of the crash appeared to show the plane falling from the sky and bursting into flames when it hit the ground, with thick columns of black smoke rising.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that an investigation into the cause of the accident was underway, adding that it would be wrong to speculate before the investigation is completed.
The speaker of the Kazakh Senate confirmed on Thursday that the reason was still unknown. “None of these countries – neither Azerbaijan, nor Russia, nor Kazakhstan – is interested in hiding information. All information will be publicly available,” Ashimbayev-Mullen said.
Their comments came after Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said, Published on X On Wednesday: “This morning, a Russian air defense system shot down an Embraer 190 plane belonging to an Azerbaijani airline, which was on its way from Baku to Grozny. He cited video footage from inside the plane that showed “perforated life jackets.”
Meanwhile, there was speculation in Russian media that the plane may have been shot down by Russian air defenses, which mistook it for a Ukrainian drone.
As for the Fighterbomber Telegram channel, which is believed to be run by Ilya Tumanov, a captain in the Russian army, Released A clip shows what appear to be holes in the plane’s wreckage, which some have suggested resembles the type of damage caused by bombing or exploding shrapnel.
Fighterbomber said the holes were unlikely to have been caused by bird strikes.
Kazakh aviation expert Sirik Muktbayev told the Orda news newspaper that birds colliding with the plane and causing it to crash was “almost impossible” given the altitude the plane was flying at when it encountered the problem. He cited outside influence as a possible cause.
Flight tracking data from Flightradar24.com showed that the plane made what appeared to be a figure eight as it approached the airport in Aktau, with the plane’s altitude moving up and down dramatically during the final minutes of the flight before it reached the ground.
Separately, the FlightRadar24 website said the plane experienced “strong GPS jamming” that “rendered the plane’s transmissions poor.” ADS-B Data,” referring to information that allows flight tracking websites to follow planes as they fly. Russia has been blamed in the past for jamming GPS transmissions in the wider region.
Russia has previously used jamming technology to defend against drone attacks, and some reports indicate that Chechnya was subjected to such an attack shortly before the plane crash.
On Wednesday morning, Khamzat Kadyrov, a local security official and nephew of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, wrote on Instagram: “All drones were successfully shot down.”
In recent weeks, Ukrainian drones have targeted several locations in Chechnya, including a facility housing local police forces.
Famous Russian pro-war blogger, Yuri Podolyaka, said that the holes seen in the wreckage of the plane resembled damage caused by the “anti-aircraft missile system,” adding: “Everything points to that.”
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said it was too early to speculate on the causes of the plane crash, but the weather forced the plane to change its planned route. The Russian Civil Aviation Authority said that preliminary information showed that the pilots diverted to Aktau after a bird collision led to an emergency on board the plane.
The Azerbaijani Prosecutor’s Office opened a criminal investigation.
The country’s official news agency AZERTAC said that an official delegation including the Minister of Emergency Situations, the Deputy Prosecutor General and the Deputy President of Azerbaijan Airlines was sent to Aktau to conduct a “field investigation.”
Interfax reported that Kazakhstan’s Chief Public Prosecutor for Transport, Timur Suleimanov, said at a press conference in the capital, Astana, that the plane’s black box, which contains flight data, had been found to help determine the cause of the crash.
A spokesman for the Kazakh Emergencies Ministry said on Thursday that specialists were working to identify the bodies of those who died in the accident. The spokesman said that among the survivors, 11 were still in intensive care. The Russian Emergencies Ministry said on Thursday morning that it had evacuated nine Russian citizens who survived the accident, including a child, from Aktau to Moscow on a special flight.
