Azerbaijan mourns crash victims as speculation mounts about cause

Azerbaijan mourns crash victims as speculation mounts about cause

U.K.-based Osprey Flight Solutions said flight was likely shot down by a Russian air-defence system; Azerbaijani President Aliyev said it was too soon to speculate on the reasons, but said the weather had forced the plane to change from its course.

Azerbaijan on Thursday observed a nationwide day of mourning for the victims of the plane crash that killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured as speculation mounted about a possible cause of the disaster that remained unknown.

Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 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.

Cellphone footage showed part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings and the rest of the aircraft lying upside in the grass.

Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that it was too soon to speculate on the reasons behind the crash, but said that the weather had forced the plane to change from its planned course.

As the official crash investigation started, theories abounded about a possible cause, with some commentators alleging that holes seen in the plane’s tail section possibly indicate that it could have come under fire from Russian air defence systems fending off a Ukrainian drone attack.

Ukrainian drones had previously attacked Grozny, the provincial capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, and other regions in the country’s North Caucasus.

Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security firm based in the U.K., warned its clients that the “Azerbaijan Airlines flight was likely shot down by a Russian air defence system.”

Asked about the claims that the plane had been fired upon by air defense assets, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “it would be wrong to make hypotheses before investigators make their verdict”.