Canada said on Thursday it was deeply concerned by reports that Russian air defense may have struck the Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crashed on Wednesday, and called on Moscow to allow for an open and transparent investigation into the incident.
“Canada is deeply concerned by reports that Russian Air Defence Forces may have fired a missile on Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 causing it to crash land,” the Canadian foreign ministry said in a statement on X.
“We call on Russia to allow for an open and transparent investigation into the incident and to accept its findings,” the ministry said.
WAS RUSSIA INVOLVED?
Four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan’s investigation into the disaster told Reuters on Thursday that Russian air defenses downed an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people.
Flight J2-8243 crashed on Wednesday in a ball of fire near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from an area of southern Russia where Moscow has repeatedly used air defense systems against Ukrainian drone strikes.
The Embraer passenger jet had flown from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny, in Russia’s southern Chechnya region, before veering off hundreds of miles across the Caspian Sea.
It crashed on the opposite shore of the Caspian after what Russia’s aviation watchdog said was an emergency that may have been caused by a bird strike.
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Officials did not explain why it had crossed the sea. The nearest Russian airport on the plane’s flight path, Makhachkala, was closed on Wednesday morning.
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One of the Azerbaijani sources familiar with Azerbaijan’s investigation into the crash told Reuters that preliminary results showed the plane was struck by a Russian Pantsir-S air defense system. Its communications were paralyzed by electronic warfare systems on the approach into Grozny, the source said.
“No one claims that it was done on purpose. However, taking into account the established facts, Baku expects the Russian side to confess to the shooting down of the Azerbaijani aircraft,” the source said.
Three other sources confirmed that the Azeri investigation had come to the same preliminary conclusion. Russia’s Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
A U.S. official told Reuters on Thursday there were early indications a Russian anti-aircraft system may have struck the plane.
Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Qanat Bozymbaev said he could neither confirm nor deny the thesis that Russian air defenses downed the plane.
Asked about the possibility that Russian air defenses shot at the plane, the Kazakh transport prosecutor for the region where the plane came down said the investigation had yet to reach a firm conclusion.
The Kremlin, asked before the Reuters report about the idea that the aircraft had been shot at by Russian air defenses, said it would be improper to comment until the inquiry was concluded.
“It is wrong to build hypotheses before the conclusions of the investigation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
WRECKAGE
Footage shot by passengers on the plane before it crashed showed oxygen masks down and people wearing life vests. Later footage showed bloodied and bruised passengers climbing out of the plane. There were 29 survivors.
Pictures of the plane wreckage showed what appeared to be shrapnel damage to the tail section of the plane.
Aviation security firm Osprey Flight Solutions said in an alert to airlines on Wednesday that footage of the wreckage and the circumstances around the air space in southwest Russia indicated the possibility that the airliner was hit by some form of anti-aircraft fire.
Ukrainian military drones have repeatedly targeted Russia’s southern regions in recent months, triggering Russian air defenses. Russia and Ukraine have been at war since Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Russian Defence Ministry had reported the downing of 59 Ukrainian drones over several regions.
Some were reportedly shot down in closed air space over regions bordering Ukraine, including the Sea of Azov. Flight operations were reportedly temporarily suspended at Russia’s Kazan Airport due to the activity.
In addition, publicly available ADS-B flight tracking data shows that the Azerbaijani aircraft experienced GPS jamming throughout its flight over southwest Russia, the alert said.
Russia uses advanced electronic jamming equipment to confuse Ukrainian drone location and communication systems and a large number of air defense systems have been deployed to shoot down the drones.
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