The national carrier of Azerbaijan suspends flights to other Russian cities after the accident that killed 38 people

Azerbaijan’s national carrier announced on Friday that it was suspending flights to several Russian airports, citing potential risks to flight safety after accident one of his planes, which many experts blamed for the fire of Russian anti-aircraft fire.

An Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 was flying from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was turned away for unknown reasons. crashed while trying to land in Aktau in Kazakhstan after flying east across the Caspian Sea. As a result of the accident, 38 people died, all 29 survivors were injured.

Authorities in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia have not spoken about a possible cause of the crash pending an official investigation, but an Azerbaijani lawmaker blamed Moscow. Rasim Musabekov told Azerbaijan’s Turan news agency on Thursday that the plane was fired upon while in the sky over Grozny and called on Russia to issue an official apology.

Responding to a question about Musabekov’s statement, Kremlin press secretary Dmytro Peskov refused to comment, noting that the cause of the plane crash should be determined by investigators.

“The air incident is being investigated, and we do not believe that we have the right to make any assessments until conclusions are drawn based on the results of the investigation,” Peskov said during a conference call with journalists.

Investigators from Azerbaijan are working in Grozny as part of the investigation into the disaster, according to a statement from the General Prosecutor’s Office of Azerbaijan.

When the official investigation into the crash began, some aviation experts said that holes seen in the tail of the plane indicated that it could have come under fire from Russian air defense systems that were repelling an attack by a Ukrainian drone.

Ukrainian drones have previously attacked Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, and other regions of the country’s North Caucasus. A Chechen official said another drone attack on the region was repelled on Wednesday, although federal authorities did not report it.

FlightRadar24 reported in an online post that the plane encountered “severe GPS interference” that interfered with flight tracking data. Russia widely uses sophisticated equipment to erect obstacles to repel drone attacks.

After suspending flights from Baku to Groza and Makhachkala on Wednesday, Azerbaijani airlines also suspended flights to other Russian cities on Friday, suspending flights to Mineralnye Vody, Sochi, Volgograd, Ufa, and Samara.

The statement says that the flights will be suspended “following the preliminary results of the investigation into the crash of the Embraer 190 flying J2-8243 Baku-Grozny, caused by physical and technical obstacles, as well as considering the potential risks to the flight. security”.

The company will continue to operate flights to six other Russian cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kazan. In the past, these cities have also repeatedly become targets of strikes by Ukrainian drones.

Kazakhstan’s Qazaq Air also announced on Friday that it was suspending flights from Astana to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in the Urals for a month.

The day before, Israel’s El Al suspended flights from Tel Aviv to Moscow due to the “development of the situation in Russian airspace.” The airline said it would reassess the situation next week to decide whether to resume flights.

Associated Press writer Aida Sultanova wrote this report from London.