Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport. Photo: EPA-EFE/SERGEI ILNITSKY
Three international airlines have suspended flights to a number of Russian cities following reports that an Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday may have been downed by a Russian air defence system.
Kazakh airline Qazaq Air announced on Telegram on Friday that it would suspend flights from Kazakhstan’s capital Astana to Yekaterinburg, in the Russian Urals, until 27 January 2025, “to ensure the safety of passengers” based on the results of an “ongoing risk assessment of flights to Russia”. The airline will continue to operate flights to the Siberian cities of Omsk and Novosibirsk.
Azerbaijan Airlines, which operated the flight from Baku to Grozny that crashed at Aqtau Airport in southwestern Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 people, also announced it would suspend flights to seven Russian cities — Sochi, Mineralnye Vody and Volgograd in southern Russia, Grozny and Makhachkala in the Russian North Caucasus, and Ufa and Samara in the Volga region, Azerbaijan’s state news agency APA reported. The airline said the flights would be suspended until the investigation into the Aqtau crash is concluded.
Israel’s national airline El Al said on Thursday it would suspend flights from Tel-Aviv to Moscow for a week, after which it would “reassess the situation”, Israeli media reported.
Azerbaijani government sources told Euronews on Thursday that a Russian surface-to-air missile was fired at the Azerbaijan Airlines plane “during drone activity in Grozny”, while shrapnel “hit the passengers and cabin crew as it exploded next to the aircraft mid-flight”.
The report appears to confirm previous speculation that the plane had been shot down after footage from the crash site appeared to show holes in the tail of the plane, amid reports of a Ukrainian drone attack on Chechnya early on Wednesday.
No official cause of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash has yet been given.
Rosaviatsia, Russia’s civil aviation agency, said on Friday that the situation around Grozny “in the hours of the plane crash” was “complicated”, with Grozny Airport introducing airspace restrictions due to “terrorist attacks by Ukrainian drones” and “heavy fog”, state news agency TASS reported. The agency also said that Russia had suggested the pilot land at other airports, but he decided to head for Aqtau.