Crashed Azerbaijani plane hit from ground – president
The passenger jet that crashed in Kazakhstan earlier this week had been struck from the ground near the Russian city of Grozny, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has claimed.
An Embraer 190, operating as Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 from Baku to Grozny, diverted to Kazakhstan and crashed on Wednesday, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.
In a Sunday interview with the state-run broadcaster AzTV, Aliyev claimed that the aircraft “was damaged from the outside on Russian territory, near the city of Grozny, and almost got out of control.”
“We are also aware that our aircraft was rendered uncontrollable by electronic warfare means... In addition, the tail section of the plane was severely damaged by fire from the ground,” he said.
Aliyev noted that the exact circumstances of the crash would become known after the data from flight recorders is accessed. However, he insisted that the preliminary versions of the incident “are well founded and based on facts.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Aliyev on Saturday to express his condolences over the deadly plane crash, the Kremlin said in a statement. He offered an apology to his Azeri counterpart for the fact that the incident, which he attributed to a Ukrainian UAV raid, “took place in Russian airspace.”
Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, as well as other cities in the region, “were being attacked by Ukrainian combat drones at the time, and Russian air defenses were repelling those attacks,” the statement read.
Russia’s Investigative Committee is probing the incident for possible violations of air traffic safety rules, with “civilian and military specialists” in the country being questioned, the Kremlin said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that Putin and Aliyev held another phone call on Sunday, during which the two leaders continued to discuss issues related to the tragic incident.
