Azerbaijan on Thursday noticed a nationwide day of mourning for the victims of the aircraft crash that killed 38 people and left 29 survivors injured as hypothesis mounted a couple of attainable reason behind the catastrophe.
Azerbaijan Airways’ Embraer 190 was en route from Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku to the Russian metropolis of Grozny within the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted for causes nonetheless unclear and crashed whereas making an attempt to land in Aktau in Kazakhstan after flying east throughout the Caspian Sea.
The aircraft went down about 2 miles from Aktau. Cellphone footage circulating on-line appeared to point out the plane making a steep descent earlier than smashing into the bottom in a fireball. Different footage and images confirmed a part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings and the rear half of the plane mendacity the other way up within the grass.
ISSA TAZHENBAYEV / AFP through Getty Photographs
Talking at a information convention Wednesday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev mentioned it was too quickly to take a position on the explanations behind the crash however mentioned the climate had pressured the aircraft to vary from its deliberate course.
“The knowledge supplied to me is that the aircraft modified its course between Baku and Grozny because of worsening climate circumstances and headed to Aktau airport, the place it crashed upon touchdown,” he mentioned.
Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, mentioned preliminary info indicated that the pilots diverted to Aktau after a hen strike led to an emergency on board.
However what occurred subsequent is unclear. A regional official in Kazakhstan appeared to acknowledge Thursday that the investigation is trying into whether or not Russian air defenses downed the aircraft. Mangystau Regional Transport Prosecutor Abylaibek Ordabayev mentioned they haven’t but come to any conclusions about whether or not that performed a job, Reuters information company reported.
Because the official crash investigation began, theories abounded a couple of attainable trigger, with some commentators alleging that holes seen within the aircraft’s tail part presumably point out it may have come below hearth from Russian air protection techniques keeping off a Ukrainian drone assault.
Ukrainian drones had beforehand attacked Grozny, the provincial capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, and different areas within the nation’s North Caucasus. Some Russian media claimed there was one other drone assault on Chechnya Wednesday, although it wasn’t formally confirmed.
Osprey Flight Options, an aviation safety agency based mostly in the UK, warned its purchasers that the “Azerbaijan Airways flight was probably shot down by a Russian navy air-defense system.” Osprey gives evaluation for carriers nonetheless flying into Russia after Western airways halted their flights throughout the war in Ukraine.
Osprey CEO Andrew Nicholson mentioned the corporate had issued greater than 200 alerts concerning drone assaults and air protection techniques in Russia in the course of the battle.
“This incident is a stark reminder of why we do what we do,” Nicholson wrote on-line. “It’s painful to know that regardless of our efforts, lives have been misplaced in a method that would have been averted.”
Russian navy skilled Yury Podolyaka was cited by Agence France-Presse as saying holes seen within the aircraft’s wreckage have been just like these an “anti-aircraft missile system” would depart. “All the pieces factors to that,” he wrote.
KAMILLA JUMAYEVA/AFP through Getty Photographs
And Gerard Legauffre, a former skilled at France’s BEA air accident investigation company, additionally mentioned there seemed to be “a whole lot of shrapnel” harm to the wreckage, in line with AFP.
He depicted it as “reminiscent” of Malaysia Airways flight MH17, a passenger jet that was downed with a surface-to-air missile by Russia-backed rebels over japanese Ukraine in 2014.
However when requested in regards to the claims that the aircraft had been fired upon by air protection property, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov instructed reporters, “It will be flawed to make hypotheses earlier than investigators make their verdict.”
Kazakhstan’s parliamentary Speaker Maulen Ashimbayev additionally warned in opposition to speeding to conclusions based mostly on footage of the aircraft’s fragments, describing the allegations of air protection hearth as unfounded and “unethical.”
Different officers in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have equally averted touch upon a attainable reason behind the crash, saying it will likely be as much as investigators to find out.
Nationwide flags have been lowered throughout Azerbaijan on Thursday, site visitors throughout the nation stopped at midday and alerts have been sounded from ships and trains because the nation noticed a nationwide second of silence.
