38 people were killed as a result of crash of Azerbaijan Airlines plane en route to Grozny. It could have been hit by Russian air defense. VIDEO+PHOTOS
An Embraer aircraft of Azerbaijan Airlines, en route from Baku to Grozny, crashed near Aktau in Kazakhstan. The cause of the crash is currently unknown, but according to one version in the media, the plane could have been shot down by air defence systems over the territory of the Russian Federation.
This was reported by Censor.NET.
According to Azerbaijan Airlines, there were 67 people on board, including five crew members.
According to the Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, head of the state commission to investigate the causes of the accident, Kanat Bozumbayev, 38 people died in the crash
Following the appearance of footage of the wreckage of the Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 aircraft with characteristic damage to the fuselage, the media reported that the plane had been attacked by air defence systems over Russian territory.
According to Flightradar24, the plane disappeared from radar in Dagestan after entering Russian airspace and later reappeared near the coast of Kazakhstan.
The downing could be linked to a drone attack in Chechnya an hour before the plane went down, which Russian air defences could have mistaken for a UAV.
Video from inside the plane before the crash also appeared. Passengers had already seen damage of an unknown nature on the wing.