The Russian government has warned of prompting an “inquiry” into the cause of the crash of a Russian-bound passenger plane that killed 38 people in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
Pictures of the broken fuselage appeared to show shrapnel damage and some aviation experts suggested the Azerbaijan Airlines plane may have been hit by air defense systems over the Russian republic of Chechnya.
Before landing near the Kazakh city of Aktau, the plane was diverted across the Caspian Sea, from its destination in Chechnya to western Kazakhstan.
29 of the 67 people on board survived. Azerbaijan held a national day of mourning for the victims of the accident on Thursday.
Reuters“This is a great tragedy that has turned into a great sorrow for the people of Azerbaijan,” President Ilham Aliyev said on Thursday.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “It would be a mistake to make comments before the conclusions of the investigation. We cannot do this, and no one should do this. We need to wait until the investigation is finished. It is finished.”
The Embraer 190 plane took off from the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, on Wednesday morning. It was due to fly to Grozny in Chechnya but was diverted due to fog, the airline said.
A surviving passenger told Russian TV that he believed the pilot made two attempts to land in Grozny in dense fog before “the third time, something exploded… the skin of the plane exploded”.
The flight was diverted to Aktau Airport, 450km (280 miles) to the east. Footage shows the plane descending at high speed 3km (1.9 miles) short of the runway, before bursting into flames as it landed.
Kazakh authorities have obtained the flight data recorder and an investigation is ongoing. Shortly after the crash, Russian state-controlled TV reports said the most likely cause was a bird strike.
But that collision usually results in the plane flying toward the nearest airport, aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia told Reuters news agency. “You can lose control of the plane, but you don’t fly out of control,” he said.
Justin Crump of accident consultancy Sibylline said the pattern of damage to the interior and exterior of the plane indicated that Russia’s Grozny air defense system may have been responsible for the crash.
“It looks like an anti-aircraft missile was fired at the back and left side of the plane, if you look at the shrapnel pattern we’re seeing,” he told BBC Radio 4.
Chechnya has already been hit by Ukrainian strikes this month and authorities in neighboring Ingushetia said the Russian region had been targeted for the first time since the war in Ukraine began.
A shopping mall was hit by a drone strike in North Ossetia, killing one woman, reports said.
The head of the Senate of Kazakhstan, Ashimbayev Maulen, emphasized that the cause of the plane crash near Aktau was not yet known.
“None of these countries – Azerbaijan, Russia or Kazakhstan – are interested in hiding information. All information will be available to the public,” he said.
Most of the people on board were Azerbaijanis, but there were also passengers from Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Video footage showed survivors crawling out of the rubble, some with injuries. The injured were treated at the hospital and 11 are in the intensive care unit, AFP news agency reported.
Embraer, a Brazilian manufacturer, is a smaller competitor to Boeing and Airbus, and has a strong safety record.
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