Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan on December 25 was shot down from the ground in Russia.
The comments came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Aliyev over what Moscow called a “tragic incident” involving an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that killed 38 people. Thirty-nine survived.
What did Aliyev say?
Aliyev told Azeri state media, “The fact is that the Azerbaijani civilian plane was damaged outside Russian territory, near the city of Grozny, and almost lost control. We also know that electronic warfare systems targeted our plane. It was out of control.”
“At the same time, the tail section of the plane was also seriously damaged by ground fire,” Aliyev said.
“Unfortunately, in the first three days we heard only absurd versions from Russia,” Aliyev said, referring to statements in Russia that blamed the crash on bird strikes or the explosion of some kind of gas cylinder.
On Sunday, Aliyev paid tribute to the pilots and passengers of Flight J2-8243, which went down near the city of Aktau.
Captain Igor Kashnyakin and co-pilot Alexander Kalyaninov, both ethnic Russians with Azerbaijani citizenship, and flight attendant Hokuma Aliyeva were given full honors at a ceremony in central Baku.
The actions of the pilots, which resulted in the plane landing in such a way that the 29 people on board survived, have been widely praised.
“The emergency landing could be successfully carried out only because of the courage and professionalism of the pilots,” Azerbaijan’s presidential office said.
Many more to follow…
kb/wd (Reuters, AFP)
