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Russian anti-aircraft fire could have caused a plane to crash in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, according to US and regional officials.
The Azerbaijan Airlines flight was en route from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny in Chechnya, southern Russia, when it diverted and crash-landed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people. Twenty-nine passengers survived.
Most of those on the plane, an Embraer 190, were Azerbaijani citizens. There were also 16 Russians on board and several citizens of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
In preliminary official reports on Wednesday, Russia said that heavy fog had forced the plane to divert from its planned landing in Grozny and seek to land in Kazakhstan, where it crashed after probably hitting a flock of birds. On the same day, Azerbaijan’s president said he had been told the plane had been diverted due to poor weather conditions.
But that was questioned by experts and officials in the US, the region and Ukraine, who cited evidence that Russian air defences were operating over Grozny at the time in response to a Ukrainian drone strike. They also cited images of what appeared to be shrapnel damage on the inside and tail of the wrecked plane.
A US official said there were early indications that a Russian anti-aircraft system might have struck the plane. If this was the case, the incident would further underscore Moscow’s recklessness since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the official added.
Andriy Kovalenko, a Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council official, posted on Telegram: “Russia was supposed to close the airspace over Grozny, but did not do so . . . The plane was damaged by the Russians and sent to Kazakhstan, instead of making an emergency landing in Grozny and saving people’s lives.”
Senior Ukrainian officials confirmed to the Financial Times that Kyiv believed the plane was most probably hit by Russia air defence systems.
Osprey, an aviation security agency, said: “Follow-on video of the wreckage and the circumstances around the airspace security environment in south-west Russia indicate the possibility the aircraft was hit by some form of anti-aircraft fire.”
A senior official in the Caucasus region said evidence pointed to the plane being damaged by air defences over the Grozny area.
“If [Russian authorities are] going to use jamming systems and anti-aircraft systems, they should have closed the airspace,” the official told the FT. “The most benign explanation for why they did not do so is incompetence.”
If the investigation, which is being led by Kazakhstan officials, finds the plane was hit by air defence systems, the incident would recall the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014. The crash, which killed 298 people, was caused by a missile launched by Russian-controlled proxy fighters in eastern Ukraine, an investigation concluded.
Data from the Flightradar24 tracking service shows that the Azerbaijan plane stopped registering its position continuously once it reached the north Caucasus area, suggesting that GPS was being jammed.
However, Flightradar24 found some identifying information was available that showed the plane had made it as far as Grozny before changing course for Kazakhstan.
Images from the crash site show much of the plane’s front was half destroyed, but a large part of the tail remained intact. The tail appears to be covered with impact marks and small punctures that could be consistent with a strike by a surface-to-air missile defence system, according to military experts.
“The holes in the fuselage are very similar to the impact of the kind of projectiles that air-to-air missiles tend to be equipped [with], as well as the anti-aircraft missiles launched by air defence systems such as the Pantsir-S1,” said Ruslan Leviev, a military analyst and head of the Conflict Intelligence Team, an open-source investigations group.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it was premature to speculate on the causes of the crash. Authorities in Kazakhstan said it was “unethical” to blame missile fire before the investigation had concluded.
A National Security Council spokesperson said the US has seen the reports but referred reporters to Azerbaijani and Kazakhstani officials as the investigation continued.
Israel’s national airline El Al said it would suspend all flights from Tel Aviv to Moscow this week as it assesses the safety of Russian airspace.
“Over the next week, a renewed assessment of the situation will be carried out to decide whether the route will be resumed,” The Times of Israel cited the company as saying in a statement.
In a statement the plane’s manufacturer Embraer said it was “deeply saddened by the occurrence”.
“Our thoughts and heartfelt condolences go out to the families, friends, colleagues and loved ones affected by this incident. We are closely monitoring the situation and we remain fully committed to supporting the relevant authorities,” the company said.
Cartography by Steven Bernard
