Brazilian air force investigators have completed the extraction of data from two black box recorders recovered from the Azerbaijan Airlines plane which crashed in Kazakhstan on December 25, and passed it on to Kazakh authorities.
Azerbaijan believes the Brazilian-made Embraer-190 aircraft was shot down by a Russian air defense missile, which Moscow claims were in operation to combat Ukrainian drones in the area.
After aborting its scheduled landing in the Chechen capital Grozny in southern Russia, the plane then crash-landed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.
“All the data was handed over to the Kazakhstan Investigation Authority … in accordance with international protocols for investigating aircraft accidents,” read a statement from Brazil’s air force, whose Aeronautical Accidents Investigation and Prevention Center conducted the data extraction.
Investigators from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia also traveled to Brasilia for the investigation, officials said.
Azerbaijan accusations against Russia
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev – a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin – has been unusually outspoken since the crash, accusing Russia of “concealing” the causes and of promoting “delusional versions” of events which “cause us justifiable anger.”
He has demand an apology, an admission of guilt and punishment for those responsible for what he called the “criminal” targeting of the passenger plane.
Putin has acknowledged the “tragic incident” and apologized for its occurrence in Russian air space, but has not responded to claims the plane was hit by Russian weapons.
The black boxes analyzed in Brazil may reveal key flight data and cockpit dialogue from the plane’s final moments, but Kazakhstan is in charge of publishing the results.
mf/zc (Reuters, AFP)
