Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized on Saturday to his Azerbaijani counterpart for what he described as a “tragic incident” that followed the attack. An Azerbaijani passenger plane crashes in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people.
Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243, an Embraer 190, was flying from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to the city of Grozny in Russia’s North Caucasus region on Wednesday when its course was diverted for reasons that are not yet completely clear.
The plane crashed while trying to reach another airport in Aktau, western Kazakhstan. Mobile phone footage appears to show the plane making a hard landing before hitting the ground and exploding in a fireball two miles from Aktau Airport.
Press Service of the Ministry of Emergencies of Kazakhstan via AP
The airline said 67 people were on board – 62 passengers and five crew members – and that 38 people died in the crash. There were 29 survivors.
An official Kremlin statement issued on Saturday said that air defense systems opened fire near Grozny Airport when the plane “repeatedly” tried to land there on Wednesday. It was not explicitly stated that one of them hit the plane.
The statement said that Putin apologized to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev “for the tragic incident occurring in Russian airspace.”
“(President) Vladimir Putin apologized for the tragic incident that occurred in Russian airspace and once again expressed his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery for the injured,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
The statement said that Russia had launched a criminal investigation into the incident, and that Azerbaijani state prosecutors had arrived in Grozny to participate. The Kremlin also said that “relevant services” from Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are conducting a joint investigation at the plane crash site near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.
Putin’s call with Aliyev came after growing speculation that Russian air defenses may have shot down the plane by mistake.
The Kremlin said the call took place at Putin’s request.
According to a transcript of the call provided by Aliyev’s press office, the Azerbaijani president told Putin that the plane had been subjected to “foreign material and technical interference,” although he stopped short of blaming Russian air defenses.
Aliyev noted that the plane had multiple holes in its fuselage and that passengers were injured “due to foreign particles entering the cabin in the middle of the flight.”
Kamila Jomaeva/AFP via Getty Images
Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia opened investigations into the cause of the accident. The Kremlin urged People should not jump to conclusions. Investigators recovered the black boxes, flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the crash site.
On Friday, a US official and an Azerbaijani minister made separate statements blaming the incident on a foreign weapon.
A US official told CBS News there were early indications that a Russian anti-aircraft system may have hit the plane in an area where Ukrainian and Russian forces have been exchanging missile and drone fires for months. If that proves true, it would further underscore Russia’s recklessness in its ongoing campaign, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Invasion of Ukraine.
John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said Friday that US officials “saw some early indications that this plane was certainly shot down by Russian air defense systems.”
He assured reporters that the United States has intelligence or information indicating this possibility, but said that Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are currently conducting the investigation and that the United States “will respect this process.”
Passengers and crew members who survived the accident told Azerbaijani media that they heard loud noises on board the plane as it was flying over Grozny.
