A complete of 38 passengers have been killed, whilst 29 survived on Wednesday after an Azerbaijan Airways flight from Baku to Grozny crashed because it tried to make an emergency touchdown close to town of Aktau in Kazakhstan.
The investigation into the Azerbaijan Airways Flight 8432 crash in Aktau on Wednesday will now focal point on what weapon led to the incident, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Virtual Building and Delivery Rashad Nabiyev mentioned on Friday after talking with the survivors in neighbouring Kazakhstan.
On Thursday, Azerbaijani govt assets showed to Euronews that an preliminary investigation printed a Russian surface-to-air missile used to be fired on the aircraft on Wednesday because it flew over Chechnya.
Azerbaijan Airways’ Embraer 190 used to be flying from the rustic’s capital of Baku to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya.
All the way through its flight, the aircraft crashed while making an attempt to an emergency touchdown within the town of Aktau in southwestern Kazakhstan — killing 38 folks and leaving 29 survivors injured.
Assets mentioned that in spite of the pilot’s requests for an emergency touchdown, the airplane used to be no longer allowed to land at Russian airports, leaving it to divert from its trail in opposition to the Kazakh town around the Caspian Sea.
An legitimate probe into the crash has no longer but concluded. Alternatively, the survivors informed the government they heard 3 blast sounds that looked as if it would come from out of doors because the airplane flew over Grozny.
“All the way through our discuss with to survivors, together with the ones with Russian citizenship, they all, with out exception, said that they heard 3 blast sounds when the airplane used to be above Grozny town,” Nabiyev informed the Baku-based world outlet AnewZ.
“They indicated that those sounds got here from out of doors, suggesting there used to be an exterior have an effect on at the aircraft,” he added.
One flight attendant sustained accidents to her hand, whilst every other passenger suffered accidents to her hand and leg because of the explosions, Nabiyev added.
“In different photos, holes are visual at the aircraft’s wing, together with quite a lot of indicators of wear within the aircraft, in particular in its inside portions, led to by way of what seems to be an have an effect on from sharp exterior items,” he defined.
“Our investigation workforce, together with aviation consultants invited for this situation, will now read about what sort of weapon — or moderately what sort of rocket — used to be used.”
Airways refuse to fly over Russia
On Friday, Azerbaijan Airways introduced it might droop flights from Baku to seven Russian airports, together with Grozny, till the general result of an investigation into the crash have been launched.
As well as, Kazakhstan’s Qazaq Air mentioned it might droop its flights from Astana to Yekaterinburg, mentioning an ongoing possibility review of flights to Russia.
Israel’s El Al mentioned flights from Tel Aviv to Moscow for this week could be minimize because of “tendencies in Russia’s airspace”.
Moscow has remained tight-lipped about suspicions from experiences and aviation mavens that the aircraft will have been hit by way of a Russian air defence missile.
On Friday, Russia’s aviation leader mentioned a Ukrainian drone assault used to be below means within the area of Chechnya on the time an Azerbaijani airliner tried to land ahead of diverting to Kazakhstan and crashing there previous this week.