The Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed on December 25 in Kazakhstan went down after being hit by Russian air defense systems, several media reported on Thursday, citing sources in Baku.
Reuters, citing four Azerbaijani sources familiar with the investigation, confirmed this hypothesis.
Of the 67 people on board, only 29 survived. The passenger plane Embraer 190 crashed after leaving Russian airspace, unable to reach its destination, Grozny airport. Russian air defense systems have been used more than once in recent months, including in Chechnya.
The trace of the crashed plane on the service Flightradar24 ends in the Kaspiysk area of Dagestan.
The analysis of the data shows that for at least 75 minutes before the crash the plane could not maintain a constant altitude and speed. This could indicate damage to the hydraulic system - after the hydraulic fluid leaks or the electric batteries run out, the plane becomes uncontrollable, altitude jumps are noted.
As Reuters notes, authorities did not immediately explain why the plane flying from Baku to Grozny had to deviate from its route for hundreds of kilometers, crossing the Caspian Sea and ending up in Kazakhstan.
As Grozny airport services reported on Wednesday, "the plane was first redirected to Makhachkala and then, due to weather conditions, to Aktau"According to the version initially released by the Federal Air Transport Agency, the Azerbaijan Airlines flight found itself in an emergency situation due to a collision between the plane and a flock of birds, and the captain decided to go to an alternative airport, which was Aktau.
The version with the birds was immediately questioned also by aviation expert Serik Mukhtybaev who said that the commander reported technical problems to aaltitude where birds don't fly.
Euronews wrote on Thursday, December 26, citing Azerbaijani government sources, that it had confirmed the version of the downing due to Russian anti-aircraft fire.
In a video recording of the damage to the Azerbaijan Airlines plane, which appeared on several telegram channels on the day of the tragedy, traces similar to damage caused by elements that had hit the tail section were noted. At that point the hypothesis of a “bird strike” fell by the wayside and the version that the passenger airliner could have been hit from the ground by Russian air defense systems gained traction.
Government sources told Euronews that the damaged plane was not allowed to land at any Russian airport, despite the pilots' requests for an emergency landing. The crew was ordered to fly across the Caspian Sea to Aktau, Kazakhstan.
This is the second such incident. In 2014, a Malaysian Boeing MH17 crashed into a combat zone in the Donetsk region, killing 298 people. A Dutch court found that the cause of the crash was a missile launch from a Russian air defense system Beech (vertical) from territory controlled by DPR separatists and the Russian army.
