Azerbaijani President says the ill-fated plane was fired upon from Russia by Reuters

Written by Nelya Bagirova and Anton Kolodyazhny

BAKU/MOSCOW (Reuters) – A passenger plane that crashed last week, killing 38 people, was damaged by accidental fire from the ground in Russia, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday, adding that some in Russia had lied about the cause of the plane crash. The disaster.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologized to Aliyev for the “tragic incident” that occurred on Wednesday in Russian airspace, involving Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243, after Russian air defenses intercepted Ukrainian drones.

The Kremlin statement did not say that Russia shot down the plane, but only indicated that a criminal case had been opened.

“Our plane was shot down by mistake,” Aliyev told state television on Sunday, adding that the plane was exposed to some kind of electronic jamming and then was shot at as it was approaching the city of Grozny in southern Russia.

The pilots who died in the crash were praised in Azerbaijan for their landing that allowed 29 people to survive.

Aliyev said: “Unfortunately, in the first three days we only heard ridiculous stories from Russia,” citing statements in Russia that attributed the incident to a bird collision or a gas cylinder explosion.

The Azerbaijani leader, who has close ties to Russia and was educated at one of Moscow’s best universities, said: “We have witnessed clear attempts to cover up the matter.”

Aliyev said he wants Russia to admit it is guilty of shooting down the plane and punish those responsible.

The Kremlin said Putin and Aliyev had another phone call on Sunday. She did not provide details but said on Saturday that civilian and military specialists were being questioned about what happened.

In a telephone call, the head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, confirmed to the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General that Moscow had assigned the investigation to the most experienced experts and that measures were being taken to determine the cause and circumstances of the accident.

The plane crashed on Wednesday near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting its course from southern Russia, where Ukrainian drones were attacking several cities at the time, according to the Kremlin.

Putin’s extremely rare public apology on Saturday is the closest Moscow has come to accepting some blame for the disaster.

Four sources familiar with the preliminary results of Azerbaijan’s investigation into the disaster told Reuters on Thursday that Russian air defenses shot down the plane by mistake.

Burial

Azerbaijan on Sunday paid tribute to the pilots and passengers of the plane.

Captain Igor Kshenyakin and co-pilot Alexander Kalyaninov, both of Russian origin and Azerbaijani citizenship, and Hakma Aliyeva, a flight attendant, were honored at a ceremony in the Alley of Honor in central Baku attended by Aliyev and his wife Mehriban.

Aliyev said, “The pilots were experienced and knew that they would not survive this crash landing,” praising their self-sacrifices.

He added: “In order to save the passengers, they acted very heroically and as a result, there were survivors.”

Aliyev posthumously awarded the crew the titles of National Hero of Azerbaijan.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev also honored citizens who helped rescue survivors, including emergency workers, paramedics, police, employees at the airport and a local electricity company.

The Embraer E190 passenger plane took off from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to Grozny, in the Chechnya region in southern Russia, before deviating hundreds of miles across the Caspian Sea.

The Azerbaijani presidential office said the pilots struggled to control the plane and desperately tried to find a place to land.

With holes in the fuselage, some crew members injured, and cabin depressurization, the pilots were able to fly across the Caspian Sea before crash landing.

The Alley of Honor is the holiest modern cemetery in Azerbaijan – where prominent politicians, poets and scholars are buried, including Heydar Aliyev, the father of the current president.

Anastasia Kshenyakina, Captain Kshenyakina’s daughter, said her father was a dedicated pilot who took his responsibilities to his passengers seriously.

“My father always said: When I take off, I am responsible not only for my life, but also for the lives of all the passengers and crew members,” Kishnakina said.

“On his final journey, he proved what a true hero should be.”