Azerbaijan held a nationwide day of mourning on Thursday for the 38 victims of a aircraft crash that additionally injured all 29 survivors, as hypothesis grew over the still-unknown explanation for the catastrophe.
The Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 plane was en route from Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku to the Russian metropolis of Grozny within the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted for causes but unclear and crashed whereas attempting to land in Aktau in Kazakhstan after flying east throughout the Caspian Sea.
The aircraft went down about 3 kilometers (round 2 miles) from Aktau. Cellphone footage circulating on-line appeared to indicate the plane making a steep descent earlier than smashing into the bottom in a fireball. Other footage confirmed a part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings and the remainder of the plane mendacity upside within the grass.
On Thursday, nationwide flags had been lowered throughout Azerbaijan, visitors throughout the nation stopped at midday and indicators had been sounded from ships and trains because the nation noticed a nationwide second of silence.
Speaking at a news convention Wednesday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev mentioned that it was too quickly to invest on the explanations behind the crash, however mentioned that the climate had compelled the aircraft to vary from its deliberate course.
“The info supplied to me is that the aircraft modified its course between Baku and Grozny attributable to worsening climate circumstances and headed to Aktau airport, the place it crashed upon touchdown,” he mentioned.
Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, mentioned that preliminary info indicated that the pilots diverted to Aktau after a chicken strike led to an emergency on board.
According to Kazakh officers, these aboard the aircraft included 42 Azerbaijani residents, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhs and three Kyrgyzstan nationals. Russia’s Emergencies Ministry on Thursday flew 9 Russian survivors to Moscow for therapy.
Speculations mount
As the official crash investigation began, theories abounded a couple of potential trigger, with some commentators alleging that holes seen within the aircraft’s tail part presumably point out that it might have come beneath hearth from Russian air protection methods heading off a Ukrainian drone assault.
Ukrainian drones had beforehand attacked Grozny, the provincial capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, and different areas within the nation’s North Caucasus. Some Russian media claimed that one other drone assault on Chechnya occurred Wednesday, though it wasn’t formally confirmed.
Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation safety agency primarily based within the United Kingdom, warned its purchasers that the “Azerbaijan Airlines flight was doubtless shot down by a Russian navy air-defense system.” Osprey offers evaluation for carriers nonetheless flying into Russia after Western airways halted their flights throughout the warfare.
Osprey CEO Andrew Nicholson mentioned that the corporate had issued greater than 200 alerts relating to drone assaults and air protection methods in Russia throughout the warfare.
“This incident is a stark reminder of why we do what we do,” Nicholson wrote online. “It is painful to know that regardless of our efforts, lives had been misplaced in a method that might have been averted.”
Asked concerning the claims that the aircraft had been fired upon by air protection property, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov instructed reporters that “it might be fallacious to make hypotheses earlier than investigators make their verdict.”
Kazakhstan’s parliamentary Speaker Maulen Ashimbayev additionally warned in opposition to speeding to conclusions primarily based on footage of the aircraft’s fragments, describing the allegations of air protection hearth as unfounded and “unethical.”
Other officers in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have equally averted touch upon a potential explanation for the crash, saying it will likely be as much as investigators to find out it.
Source: www.dailysabah.com