Kremlin refuses to ‘hypothesise’ about cause of Azerbaijan Airlines crash

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would not “put forward hypotheses” about the cause of the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane crash at Aqtau Airport in southwestern Kazakhstan that killed 38 people on Wednesday, state news agency TASS has reported.

The Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190, which had 67 people on board, was on a scheduled flight from Baku to Grozny, in the North Caucasus, on Wednesday morning, but was diverted to Makhachkala, in neighbouring Dagestan, and then to Aqtau, reportedly due to heavy fog, where it crashed while coming into land.

Peskov’s statement comes amid speculation that the plane might have been shot down after footage from the crash site appeared to show holes in the tail of the plane, with Telegram channel Baza commenting that this looked like the aftermath of shelling or an explosion.

Another video shot from inside the plane before the crash appeared to show damage to its left-hand wing. There are also unconfirmed reports of a Ukrainian attack on Chechnya early on Wednesday, with Baza writing that Grozny Airport was closed to incoming aircraft, though the authorities initially denied any connection between the incident and a drone attack.

At least 29 passengers who were seated in the tail end of the plane are reported to have survived the crash. Kristina, one of the survivors, told Telegram channel Mash that while the plane was descending near Grozny, she felt “a thump” on the plane’s side that felt “like a bird had hit the engine”, adding that it circled in the sky for about an hour before it crashed, causing the front end of the aircraft to explode.

Her testimony was partially corroborated by air traffic monitoring service Flightradar24, which said the plane was struggling to maintain altitude for over an hour, indicating “possible control issues with the aircraft”.

Another surviving passenger, Zaur Mamedov, texted his girlfriend shortly after the crash saying that he was “waiting to die” as the plane circled for about “two hours”, according to Baza.

No official cause of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash has yet been given. Kazakhstan’s Senate speaker Maulen Ashimbaev dismissed “speculation” Thursday about a possible attack on the plane as “wrong and unethical”, adding that Kazakhstan, Russia and Azerbaijan were investigating the crash and that none of the countries were “interested in hiding information”, Kazakh news outlet Nur.kz reported.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said on Wednesday that it was “too early to talk about” the cause of the crash and noted that Azerbaijan had opened a criminal case on the incident, state-affiliated Russian news agency Interfax wrote.

Vladimir Putin also commented on the crash on Wednesday, expressing condolences to the victims’ families and saying he was “confident” a thorough investigation into the incident would be carried out.