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 few doable reason for the catastrophe.
Azerbaijan Airlines’ 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 attempting 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. Other footage confirmed a part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings and the remainder of the plane mendacity upside within the grass.
On Thursday, nationwide flags have been lowered throughout Azerbaijan, 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.
Speaking at a information convention Wednesday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev mentioned it was too quickly to invest on the explanations behind the crash however mentioned the climate had pressured the aircraft to vary from its deliberate course.
“The info offered to me is that the aircraft modified its course between Baku and Grozny as a consequence of worsening climate circumstances and headed to Aktau airport, the place it crashed upon touchdown,” he mentioned.
ISSA TAZHENBAYEV / AFP by way of Getty Images
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.
As the official crash investigation began, theories abounded a few doable trigger, with some commentators alleging that holes seen within the aircraft’s tail part probably point out it might have come underneath fireplace 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 Solutions, an aviation safety agency primarily based within the United Kingdom, warned its purchasers that the “Azerbaijan Airlines flight was possible 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 struggle.
“This incident is a stark reminder of why we do what we do,” Nicholson wrote on-line. “It is painful to know that regardless of our efforts, lives have been misplaced in a approach that might have been averted.”
Russian navy professional 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. “Everything factors to that,” he wrote.
KAMILLA JUMAYEVA/AFP by way of Getty Images
And Gerard Legauffre, a former professional at France’s BEA air accident investigation company, additionally mentioned there gave the impression to be “plenty of shrapnel” injury to the wreckage, in line with AFP.
He depicted it as “reminiscent” of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was downed with a surface-to-air missile by Russia-backed rebels over jap Ukraine in 2014.
But when requested in regards to the claims that the aircraft had been fired upon by air protection property, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov advised reporters, “It can be flawed to make hypotheses earlier than investigators make their verdict.”
Kazakhstan’s parliamentary Speaker Maulen Ashimbayev additionally warned towards dashing to conclusions primarily based on footage of the aircraft’s fragments, describing the allegations of air protection fireplace as unfounded and “unethical.”
Other officers in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have equally averted touch upon a doable reason for the crash, saying it will likely be as much as investigators to find out.
