Ukrainian officials and aviation experts say Russian antiaircraft fire “likely” led to the deadly Christmas Day crash of an Azerbaijani airliner that killed 38 people, but a Russian official said it is wrong to draw conclusions while an investigation continues.
The passenger jet crashed Wednesday near the Kazakhstani city of Aktau with 67 people aboard, leaving 29 survivors, and had diverted its course over an area where Moscow air defenses have been battling Ukrainian drones, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
The passenger jet, with 62 passengers and five crew members turned around and flew east over the Caspian Sea. Osprey Flight Solutions, citing damage to the aircraft, military activity, and the footage of the crash said in an alert to airlines that the jet was “likely shot down by a Russian military air defense system.”
“Video of the wreckage and the circumstances around the airspace security environment in southwest Russia indicates the possibility the aircraft was hit by some form of antiaircraft fire,” Osprey chief intelligence officer Matt Borie commented.
Osprey works on analysis for carriers that still fly into Russia after Western airlines halted flights during the war.
“This incident is a stark reminder of why we do what we do,” Osprey CEO Andrew Nicholson said in a statement online, reports The Associated Press.
The company had issued more than 200 alerts about drone attacks and Russian air defense systems.
“It is painful to know that despite our efforts, lives were lost in a way that could have been avoided,” Nichelson said.
Ukrainian national security official Andriy Kovalenko also said in a post on X the Russians had shot the plane down.
“Russia should have closed the airspace over Grozny but failed to do so,” Kovalenko said. “The plane was damaged by the Russians and was sent to Kazakhstan instead of being urgently landed in Grozny to save lives.”
Theories have grown about a potential cause for the crash, with some commenters alleging that holes seen in the tail section of the plane potentially indicate that it had been under fire from Russian air defense systems fending off a drone attack from Ukraine.
Grozny had been previously attacked by Ukrainian drones. The city is the provincial capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya. Russian media said Chechnya was hit by drones Wednesday, but that report was not officially confirmed.
Azerbaijan Airlines said the Embraer 190 passenger jet may have collided with a flock of birds. The company’s president said he had been told that the plane was diverted because of poor weather conditions and that an investigation is continuing. The jet’s black box has been recovered, officials said.
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that as the investigation is underway, it would be “wrong to make hypotheses before investigators make their verdict.”
Maulen Ashimbayev, Kazakhstan’s Senate speaker, also urged against drawing premature conclusions, Turkish state media Anadolu Agency reported.
“These are speculations and unfounded statements, and it’s wrong to spread such statements,” Ashimbayev said. “It’s unethical, and it’s an indicator that certain people want to earn certain dividends for themselves in this situation.”
