Military expert says Azerbaijan Airlines plane likely downed by anti-aircraft missile

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - BAKU — A Russian military expert has said it appears that the Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crashed in Kazakhstan was brought down by "something very similar to an anti-aircraft missile."

Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8432 took off from the Azerbaijani capital Baku on Wednesday morning bound for Grozny in Chechnya.

"The plane was damaged by something very similar to an anti-aircraft missile. And it is really very, very difficult to assume anything else without some serious evidence," said military expert, Yan Matveyev.

"But overall, it looks like the tail section of the plane was damaged by some missile fragments, probably a Pantsir S-1 missile, or some anti-aircraft system with the same small missiles that carry a not very large warhead."

Those comments come after Azerbaijani government sources exclusively confirmed to Euronews that a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the aircraft to crash in Aktau.

According to the sources, the missile was fired at the plane during drone air activity above Grozny and the shrapnel hit the passengers and cabin crew as it exploded next to the aircraft mid-flight.

Yan Matveyev confirmed that Ukrainian drones were flying over Chechnya at the time the airliner went down and that it was possible it had been hit by Russia's air defenses.

"What was happening on the territory of Russia, on the territory of the Chechen Republic at the time when the plane was flying there, points to a possible attack by an air defense system, the Pantsir S-1 air defense system, because Ukrainian drones were flying there at that very time," he said.

Government sources told Euronews that the damaged aircraft was not allowed to land at any Russian airports despite requests for an emergency landing from the pilots and it was ordered to fly across the Caspian Sea towards Aktau in Kazakhstan.

According to data, the plane’s GPS navigation systems were jammed throughout the flight path above the sea.

On Thursday, Moscow urged against spreading "hypotheses" about the cause of the crash until the investigation, which is still ongoing, has been concluded.

"It would be wrong to put forward any hypotheses before the investigation's conclusions. We, of course, will not do this, and no-one should do this. We need to wait until the investigation is completed," said Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov.

The investigation into the crash is also expected to reveal why Russia reportedly denied the aircraft permission to land at any of its airports, forcing the pilots to make the Caspian Sea crossing with a damaged plane.

Russia's civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said that preliminary information indicated that the pilots diverted to Aktau after a bird strike led to an emergency on board.

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev said that it was too soon to speculate on the reasons behind the crash, but said that the weather had forced the plane to change from its planned course.

And officials in Kazakhstan have similarly avoided comment on a possible cause of the crash, saying it will be up to investigators to determine it.

If the preliminary data from the probe is confirmed, this would be the second time in a decade that Russian forces have destroyedH a commercial aircraft.

Malaysian Airlines flight 17 was shot down by Russian-backed forces over eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 people on board. — Euronews