Azerbaijan says the plane was hit by “foreign interference” over Russia before it crashed

The Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed on December 25 was subjected to “external interference” and sustained damage from the inside and outside while trying to land in the Chechen Republic in southern Russia, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Transport said.

Rashad Nabiyev said, “All (survivors) without exception said that they heard three explosions when the plane was over Grozny.”

The plane is believed to have come under fire from Russian air defense systems before being diverted across the Caspian Sea into Kazakhstan, where it crashed, killing 38 people.

The Kremlin declined to comment, but the head of Russia’s Civil Aviation Agency said the situation in Grozny was “very complex” at the time and a closed-sky protocol was put in place.

“Ukrainian drones have been carrying out terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure in the cities of Grozny and Vladikavkaz,” Dmitry Yadrov, head of Rosaviatsiya, said in a video statement published by Russia’s TASS news agency.

“For this reason, a ‘carpet plan’ was introduced in the Grozny airport area, which provides for the immediate departure of all aircraft from the designated area,” he added. “In addition, there was dense fog in the area of ​​Grozny Airport.”

Later on Friday, White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters that the United States saw “early indications” that the plane may have been shot down by Russian air defenses, but he declined to comment further.

The Washington Post reported that Kirby said the indications the United States saw went beyond widely circulated photos of the damaged plane.

Ukrainian presidential spokesman Andriy Yermak said that Russia must be held responsible.

Azerbaijan Airlines said on Friday that a preliminary investigation blamed “foreign material and technical interference” without elaborating.

However, aviation experts and others in Azerbaijan believe the plane’s GPS systems were affected by electronic jamming and then damaged by shrapnel from Russian air defense missiles.

The Minister of Transport said that investigators will now examine “the type of weapon, or rather the type of missile used.”

The government in Baku has so far avoided directly accusing Russia, perhaps to avoid antagonizing President Vladimir Putin.

But pro-government MP Rasim Musabekov was clear: “The plane was shot down over Russian territory, in the sky of Grozny. Denying this is impossible.”

He told Agence France-Presse that the plane was damaged and the pilot requested an emergency landing in Grozny. Instead of directing it to nearby airports, he said it was “sent away” across the Caspian Sea without a GPS.

The flight attendant, Zulfikar Asadov, described the moments when the plane was subjected to “some kind of external strike” over Chechnya.

“Its impact caused panic inside. We tried to calm them down and force them to sit down. At that moment, another blow occurred, and my arm was injured.”

Veteran Azerbaijani pilot Tahir Agagoliyev told Azerbaijani media that the fragments damaged the hydraulic components controlling the plane: “The missile itself did not hit the plane, but rather it was fragments from the missile that hit the plane. The missile exploded about 10 meters (30 feet) away, before He gets to the plane.” “The plane.”

The pilots of the Embraer 190 are credited with saving 29 people on board by managing to land part of the plane, although they were killed in the accident.

The Kremlin refused to comment on the growing number of reports that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane was hit by Russian air defense.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “This aviation accident is being investigated, and until the results are reached as a result of the investigation, we do not consider ourselves qualified to give any assessments.”

Azerbaijan is looking for a Russian apology, or at least an acknowledgment, that the plane was subjected to strikes on its air defenses in Grozny, according to figures close to the government in Baku.

Four years ago, Baku apologized for the compensation it offered when it shot down a Russian Air Force Mi-24 helicopter at the end of the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Now the Azerbaijani side also expects Russia to take these steps,” political commentator Farkhad Mammadov said.

The Kazakh authorities are treating the injured and working closely with Azerbaijan in the investigation.

Officials say Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer has sent two specialists to the crash site, 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) from Aktau Airport in Kazakhstan, and three members of the Brazilian aviation agency will arrive on Saturday.

Reports in Baku indicate that Russia and Kazakhstan proposed forming a committee from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) – a regional organization dominated by Russia – to investigate the incident, but Azerbaijan instead demanded an international investigation.

Azerbaijan Airlines and many other airlines suspended their flights to some Russian cities in response to the incident.

The airline said in a post on social media that this was for “security reasons.” It had already stopped flights to Grozny and Makhachkala in neighboring Dagestan, but has now added the cities of Sochi, Volgograd, Ufa, Samara and Mineralnye Vody.

Meanwhile, Israel’s leading airline, El Al, suspended all flights to Moscow, citing developments in Russian airspace, and UAE-based budget airline Flydubai halted flights to Sochi and Mineralnye Vody.