On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile of Russian origin fired from Ukrainian territory, causing 298 deaths and leaving with no answer as to whether it was a mistake or a deliberate act of war. More than a decade later, the ghost of this tragedy is resurrected again after An Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed this Wednesday (AZAL) in Kazakhstan ending the lives of more than half of its passengers38 of its 67 passengers.
Although at first it was thought to be an accident, as the hours go by more and more sources suggest that the Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 planewhich failed to complete its flight from Baku in Azerbaijan to Grozny in Russia, was shot down by a Russian air defense system.
“The explosion of a missile air defense damaged the plane and disabled their systems”wrote the head of the Center for Combating Disinformation of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Andri Kovalenko, on Telegram. The holes in the plane’s fuselage that appeared during the flight and can be seen in images of passengers could not have been caused by birds, as Russian sources initially reported, he said.
A passenger recorded the damage to one of the wings of the plane that crashed in Kazakhstan.
“Russia had to close the airspace over Grozny, but it did not do it,” Kovalenko stressed, referring to the risks created by the drone attack that was occurring in Grozny at that very moment.
The Russian city was attacked by drones on Wednesday morning, confirmed the secretary of the Chechnya Security Council and nephew of the region’s head, Jamzat Kadirov. “Everything that flew was shot down”he stated on Instagram on Wednesday.
“The plane was damaged by the Russians and sent to Kazakhstan, instead of making an emergency landing in Grozny and saving lives,” Kovalenko stressed.
A thesis to which several have been added sources from the Government of Azerbaijan, from the US Administration and people close to the investigation of the accident who have made statements under conditions of anonymity to the Reuters and Efe agencies.
According to Azerbaijani Executive sources, the flight was hit by shrapnel from a surface-to-air missile when it was in the airspace of the Russian city of Grozny.
Likewise, they assured that The authorities did not allow the emergency landing requested by the pilots of the Embraer 190 at Russian airports and they diverted it in the direction of the city of Aktau, in Kazakhstan, for which it had to fly over the waters of the Caspian Sea.
According to the pro-government agency Caliber.Az, The missile used against the plane was a Pantsir-S. The same media indicates that Russian sources recognize that Russian anti-aircraft defenses They were trying to shoot down Ukrainian drones in the skies of Chechnya, where the route of the AZAL plane took place.
For his part, a US official explained to Reuters that there is preliminary indications that a Russian anti-aircraft system may have hit the plane.
Russia’s response
He Kremlinfor its part, called this Thursday not to rush to conclusions about the causes of the plane crash. “It would be a mistake to formulate hypotheses before the conclusions of the investigation. We, of course, will not do it and no one should,” Russian Presidency spokesman Dmitri Peskov said in his daily telephone press conference.
Only the professionalism of the plane’s pilots prevented Russia from “turning this story into a Russian provocation against Ukraine,” he said, warning that Russia will do everything possible to hide its own responsibility for the plane crash and the deaths.
On Wednesday morning, 38 of the 67 people on board the plane died in the accident near the city of Aktau, Kazakhstan, after failing to land in the Russian city of Grozny (Chechnya).
Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency previously stated that the plane “collided with birds”after which its captain decided to land at an alternative airfield in Aktau, Kazakhstan.
Several pro-war Russian military bloggers, including fighterbomberhave indicated that the plane was possibly shot down by air defenses.
At the same time, in the social networks proliferate publications according to which photographs of the remains of the plane’s fuselage show shrapnel impacts.
This Thursday it was reported that the plane’s black boxes were found at the scene of the tragedy and that Brazilian experts will arrive this Friday in Kazakhstan to join the investigation of the air disaster.
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