This comes as United States military sources suggest that the Azerbaijan Airlines flight was shot down by Russian air defences believing it to be a drone.
Preliminary evidence points to Russian air defence
Azerbaijan’s transport minister Rashan Nabiyev, said “the aircraft was hit by something” and the “type of weapon used in the impact will be determined during the probe.”
The US has claimed it received intelligence that Russia believed the plane was a drone and launched its air defences, according to NBC News, citing two unnamed military officials. This may have been because of the plane’s irregular flight pattern and altitude, the sources said.
US national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Friday there were “some early indications that would certainly point to the possibility that this jet was brought down by Russian air defence systems.”
A drone view shows the crash site of an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane near the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan December 25, 2024. REUTERS/Azamat SarsenbayevKremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the incident is being investigated and Russia would not make any assessment until the conclusions have been published.
Survivors of the crash told local and international media that they heard several large bangs before the plane went down.
“It was obvious that the plane had been damaged in some way,” Subhonkul Rakhimov, a passenger, told Reuters.
Survivor Vafa Shabanova said there had been “two explosions in the sky, and an hour and a half later the plane crashed to the ground.”
What happened?
Data from flight tracking app FlightRadar24 shows the Embraer 190 jet circled Grozny and then diverted to Aktau and was flying erratically before it crashed kilometres from the airport.
Everything we know about the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash as 38 dead
Read MoreVideos shared online show passengers emerging from the wreckage, some clearly wounded.
Local officials claimed on Friday that Russian air defences had shot down a Ukrainian drone in nearby North Ossetia on the morning of the crash.
Azerbaijani state media has released footage of one of the survivors in a hospital bed and confirmed 12 of the survivors were being transported on Thursday back to the country.
Azerbaijan suspended flights to several Russian cities on Friday.
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