The Airborne Collision of an Azerbaijan Airways Flight from St Petersburg to Aktau (Mask), On Thursday (French)

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who had been traveling to St Petersburg, returned to Azerbaijan on hearing news of the crash, the president’s press service said. The Commonwealth of Independent States was formed after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Aliyev expressed his sympathies in a statement on social media. “It is with deep sadness that I express my condolences to the families of the victims and wish a speedy recovery to those injured,” he wrote.

Both Kazakhstani and Azerbaijani authorities were investigating the crash. “Embraer is ready to assist all relevant authorities, in the event that they so desire,” the company told the AP.

The deputy general prosecutor of the country, as well as the vice president of Azerbaijan Airlines had been dispatched to Aktau to conduct an “on site investigation” according to the state news agency.

A request for comment from Embraer was not immediately responded to. Azerbaijan Airlines changed its social media banners to solid black and said that it would keep members of the public updated.

FlightRadar24 separately said in an online post that the aircraft had faced “strong GPS jamming” which ” made the aircraft transmit bad ADS-B data”, referring to the information that allows flight-tracking websites to follow planes in flight. In the past it has been reported that Russia has been jamming gps transmissions.

Mobile phone footage circulating online appeared to show the aircraft making a steep descent before smashing into the ground in a fireball. The portion of the plane that was ripped away was lying upside down in the grass. The footage corresponded to the plane’s colors and its registration number.

RIA Novosti quoted Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, as saying that preliminary information showed that the pilot had chosen to divert to Aktau after a bird strike on the aircraft led to “an emergency situation on board”.

The passengers aboard the plane included 74 nationalities, of which 42 were from Azerbaijan, and 16 were from Russia. Russia’s Emergencies Ministry on Thursday flew nine Russian survivors to Moscow for treatment.

The death toll from the crash was originally said to be 28 but was later revised to 27 and 29 as the search and rescue operation continued.

Russian news agency Interfax quoted medical workers as saying that four bodies have been recovered and emergency workers at the scene as saying that both pilots, according to a preliminary assessment, died in the crash.

The emergency ministry said in a statement there were five crew on the plane. At least 29 have been hospitalized, the ministry told Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti.

The Azerbaijan Airlines Flight: Investigation begins into the Cause of the Crash on Wednesday, Oct. 3 – a Day of National Remembrance

Azerbaijan on Thursday observed a nationwide day of mourning for the victims of the plane crash that killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured as speculation mounted about a possible cause of the disaster, with some experts saying that the airliner was damaged by Russian air defense fire.

Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 was en route from Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted for reasons yet unclear and crashed while making an attempt to land in Aktau in Kazakhstan after flying east across the Caspian Sea.

As the official crash investigation started, theories abounded about a possible cause, with some experts alleging that holes seen in the plane’s tail section possibly indicate that it could have come under fire from Russian air defense systems fending off a Ukrainian drone attack.

Ukrainian drones had previously attacked Grozny, the provincial capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, and other regions in the country’s North Caucasus. An official in Chechnya said another drone attack on the region was fended off on Wednesday, although federal authorities didn’t report it.

On Thursday, national flags were lowered across Azerbaijan, traffic across the country stopped at noon, and signals sounded from ships and trains as the country observed a nationwide moment of silence.

At a news conference, the President of Azerbaijan said that it was too early to speculate on the reasons for the crash, but that the weather had forced the plane to change course.

Mark Zee of OPSGroup, which monitors the world’s airspace and airports for risks, said that the analysis of the images of fragments of the crashed plane indicate that it was almost certainly hit by a surface-to-air missile, or SAM.

He said the likelihood of it being a SAM attack on the aircraft is well into the 90’s.

Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security firm based in the United Kingdom, warned its clients that the “Azerbaijan Airlines flight was likely shot down by a Russian military air-defense system.” carriers are still flying into Russia after Western airlines halted flights during the war.

Source: Investigation begins into the cause of the Azerbaijan Airlines crash

Investigating the shooting of a Kremlin plane as a test of the Pentagon’s air defense capability in Skopje, Bulgaria

“This incident is a stark reminder of why we do what we do,” Nicholson wrote online. It is hard to know that lives could have been avoided despite our efforts.

Asked about the claims that the plane had been fired upon by air defense assets, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “it would be wrong to make hypotheses before investigators make their verdict.”

The officials in the other countries of the region did not comment on the possible cause of the crash, saying it will be up to the investigators.