Daily Times

The Kremlin on Thursday cautioned against “hypotheses” over the crash of an Azerbaijani plane which had been due to land in Russia as experts pointed to possible evidence of a missile explosion. The Azerbaijan Airlines jet crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau, an oil and gas hub, on Wednesday. Thirty-eight of the 67 people on board died. “It would be wrong to make any hypotheses before the investigation’s conclusions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. The Embraer 190 aircraft was supposed to fly northwest from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to the city of Grozny in Chechnya in southern Russia, but instead diverted far off course across the Caspian Sea. An investigation is underway, but some aviation and military experts said the plane may have been accidentally shot by Russian air defence systems as it was flying in an area where Ukrainian drone activity had been reported. Russian military expert Yury Podolyaka said holes seen in the wreckage of the plane were similar to the damage caused by an “anti-aircraft missile system”. “Everything points to that,” he wrote. A former expert at France’s BEA air accident investigation agency, also said there appeared to be “a lot of shrapnel” damage on the wreckage. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said the damage was “reminiscent” of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was downed with a surface-to-air missile by Russia-backed rebels over eastern Ukraine in 2014. But Kazakh Senate speaker Maulen Ashimbayev condemned “speculation” about what happened. He said it was “not possible” to say what may have damaged the plane, he was quoted by Russian news agency TASS as saying. Azerbaijan Airlines initially said the plane flew through a flock of birds before withdrawing the statement. The airline said there were 62 passengers and five crew members on board. Kazakh officials said 38 people had been killed and there were 29 survivors, including three children. Jalil Aliyev, the father of flight attendant Hokume Aliyeva, told AFP that this was supposed to have been her last flight before starting a job as a lawyer for the airline. “Why did her young life have to end so tragically?” the man said in a trembling voice before hanging up the phone. Eleven of the injured are in intensive care, the Kazakh health ministry said. Azerbaijan state news agency Azertac reported that 12 of the survivors were being flown to Azerbaijan. A plane carrying nine injured Russian nationals, including a child, also arrived at Zhukovsky airport in the Moscow region on Thursday, Russia’s emergency situations ministry said.