ASTANA (Reuters): An Azerbaijani passenger plane that crashed in December after being diverted from Russia to Kazakhstan had suffered damage “probably caused by external objects”, according to a preliminary report published on a Kazakh government website on Tuesday.
Thirty-eight people were killed when the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane crashed on Dec. 25 near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting across the Caspian Sea from southern Russia.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said on Dec. 29 that the plane had been damaged by accidental shooting from the ground in Russia. Moscow has not confirmed this.
Twenty-nine people survived the crash-landing in Kazakhstan. Aliyev has hailed the pilots, who died, as national heroes. The Azerbaijani leader has said that blame lies with Russian individuals, and that Baku demands justice.
Russia says it has assigned its own investigation to the most experienced experts and that actions are being taken to establish the cause and circumstances of the incident.
After the crash, the plane’s black box flight recorders were sent to be examined in Brazil, where the Embraer E190 passenger jet was manufactured.