Azerbaijan Airlines said Friday, December 27, that the preliminary results of an investigation into the plane that crashed in Kazakhstan pointed to "physical and technical external interference," amid growing speculation it was hit by a Russian air defense system.
Announcing the suspension of flights to 10 Russian airports, Azerbaijan Airlines said the decision was "based on the preliminary results of the investigation into the crash of the Embraer 190 aircraft operating the Baku-Grozny flight J2-8243 of Azerbaijan Airlines due to physical and technical external interference."
A surviving passenger told Russian TV that an explosion appeared to take place outside the plane, with shrapnel flying in. Thirty-eight of the 67 people on board died.
Russia's aviation chief said Friday that the plane that eventually crashed tried to land in the Chechen city of Grozny as it was being attacked by Ukrainian drones.
The head of Russia's civil aviation agency, Dmitry Yadrov, said in a statement that "the situation on this day and at these hours in the area of Grozny airport was very complex."
"Ukrainian attack drones at this time were making terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure in the cities of Grozny and Vladikavkaz," Yadrov said, referring to a nearby city. Yadrov said the Azeri pilot made "two attempts to land the plane in Grozny that were unsuccessful" in "thick fog."
"The pilot was offered other airports. He took the decision to go to Aktau airport," he added.
The Kremlin earlier Friday declined to comment on the deadly crash. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that "until the conclusions of the investigation, we do not consider we have the right to make any comments and we will not do so."
Ukraine's presidency said Russia "must be held responsible for the downing" of the plane.
Contacted by Agence France-Presse (AFP), Azerbaijani government officials did not respond to questions about the possible causes of the crash. But Rasim Musabekov, an Azerbaijani lawmaker and member of the parliament's international relations committee, urged Russia to apologize for the incident. "They have to accept this, punish those to blame, promise that such a thing will not happen again, express regrets and readiness to pay compensation," Musabekov told AFP. "We are waiting for Russia to do this."
He said the plane "was damaged in the sky over Grozny and asked to make an emergency landing".
"According to all the rules of aviation, they should have allowed this and organized it." Instead, the plane was not allowed to land at Grozny or nearby Russian airports and was "sent far away" across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan with "GPS switched off", Musabekov said. He suggested that the aim could have been for the plane to crash into the sea to "cover up a crime." If air defenses were operating near Grozny airport, "they should have closed the air space. The plane should have been turned around as it approached Grozny. Why wasn't this done?" he asked.