Daily Times

Azerbaijan’s flag carrier announced Friday that it will suspend flights to several Russian airports, citing potential flight safety risks after a crash of one of its planes that many experts blamed on Russian air defense fire.

Azerbaijan Airlines´ Embraer 190 was flying from Azerbaijan´s capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted for reasons still unclear and crashed while making an attempt to land in Aktau in Kazakhstan after flying east across the Caspian Sea. The crash killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured. Authorities in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia were tight-lipped about a possible cause of the crash pending an official probe, but a lawmaker in Azerbaijan blamed Moscow. Rasim Musabekov told the Azerbaijani news agency Turan on Thursday that the plane was fired on while in the skies over Grozny, and urged Russia to offer an official apology. Asked about Musabekov’s statement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment, saying that it will be up to investigators to determine the cause of the crash.

“The air incident is being investigated and we don’t believe we have the right to make any assessments until the conclusions are made as a result of the investigation,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.

Investigators from Azerbaijan are working in Grozny as part of the crash probe, Azerbaijani Prosecutor General´s office said in a statement. As the official crash probe started, some aviation experts pointed out that holes seen in the plane´s tail section suggested that it could have come under fire from Russian air defense systems fending off a Ukrainian drone attack.