Azerbaijan Airlines plane downed by Russian air defenses – Reuters

One of the Azerbaijani sources familiar with Azerbaijan's investigation into the crash said that preliminary results showed the plane was struck by a Russian Pantsir-S air defense system. Its communications were paralyzed by electronic warfare systems on the approach into Grozny, the source said.

"No one claims that it was done on purpose. However, taking into account the established facts, Baku expects the Russian side to confess to the shooting down of the Azerbaijani aircraft," the source said.

Three other sources confirmed that the Azeri investigation had come to the same preliminary conclusion.

A U.S. official told Reuters on Thursday there were early indications a Russian anti-aircraft system may have struck the plane.

Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Qanat Bozymbaev said he could neither confirm nor deny the thesis that Russian air defenses downed the plane.

Asked about the possibility that Russian air defenses shot at the plane, the Kazakh transport prosecutor for the region where the plane came down said the investigation had yet to reach a firm conclusion.

Aviation security firm Osprey Flight Solutions said in an alert to airlines on Wednesday that footage of the wreckage and the circumstances around the air space in southwest Russia indicated the possibility that the airliner was hit by some form of anti-aircraft fire.

In addition, publicly available ADS-B flight tracking data shows that the Azerbaijani aircraft experienced GPS jamming throughout its flight over southwest Russia, the alert said.

The Kremlin, asked before the Reuters report about the idea that the aircraft had been shot at by Russian air defenses, said it would be improper to comment until the inquiry was concluded.

"It is wrong to build hypotheses before the conclusions of the investigation," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Flight J2-8243 crashed on Wednesday in a ball of fire near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from an area of southern Russia where Moscow has repeatedly used air defense systems against Ukrainian drone strikes.

Photo: EFE-EPA