A Russian air defense system was behind the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane in Kazakhstan, four Azerbaijani sources said Thursday, as the Kremlin urged caution and said an investigation was still ongoing.
Citing government sources, a report in Azerbaijani news outlet AnewZ claimed that the preliminary results of the investigation into the incident determined that the plane was attacked by a Pantsir missile system as it approached the city of Grozny.
According to the report, the aircraft's communication system was completely paralyzed due to the use of Russian electronic warfare systems, which resulted in the plane disappearing from radars while in Russian airspace.
It added that the plane only reappeared in radars while it was in the area around the Caspian Sea.
The Azerbaijan Airlines' Embraer 190 aircraft was en route from Azerbaijan's capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted for reasons yet unclear and crashed while making an attempt to land in Aktau in Kazakhstan after flying east across the Caspian Sea.
The plane went down about 3 kilometers (around 2 miles) from Aktau. Cellphone footage circulating online appeared to show the aircraft making a steep descent before smashing into the ground in a fireball. Other footage showed part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings and the rest of the aircraft lying upside down in the grass.
The Kremlin urged restraint on Thursday in speculating about the cause of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan that killed 38 of the 67 passengers on board, as Azerbaijan held a national day of mourning.
"An investigation is currently under way; every incident in aviation must be investigated by specialized aviation authorities," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Russian state-run TASS news agency. "It would be wrong to hypothesize before the conclusions of the investigation are available."
Various theories have been put forward, including the possibility that the aircraft was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile countering a Ukrainian drone attack, based on unusual damage observed on the plane's fuselage.
The chairman of the Senate in Kazakhstan, Maulen Aschimbayev, dismissed this as "hype" and an unsubstantiated claim.
Recovery teams retrieved the flight recorders from the wreckage of the aircraft at the crash site near Aktau on the Caspian Sea coast Wednesday evening. Their analysis, along with radio communications, is expected to help investigators determine the cause of the crash.
The Embraer 190 aircraft, was en route from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, with 67 people aboard, including five crew members.
For reasons still unknown, the plane veered towards the Caspian Sea before crashing near Aktau, Kazakhstan, shortly before its landing approach.
