Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated that Russia shot down an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane, though not intentionally. Aliyev accused Russian officials of attempting to cover up the incident and claimed they were spreading "absurd theories" of what occurred.
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The plane, which was flying from Baku to Grozny, crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau on December 25. Of the 67 people on board, 38 died.
“Of course, the final version will become clear after the black boxes have been examined. However, the initial theories are also quite reasonable and are based on facts. The facts indicate that the Azerbaijani civilian plane was damaged from the outside over Russian territory, near the city of Grozny, and almost lost control. We also know that means of electronic warfare put our plane out of control. This was the first impact on the plane. At the same time, as a result of fire from the ground, the tail of the plane was also severely damaged. Immediately, on the same day, our team captured this video footage from the city of Aktau and informed the public about it. The fact that the fuselage is riddled with holes indicates that the theory of the plane hitting a flock of birds.
“It is possible that when the plane was damaged, when it was hit, the pilot could have perceived it as a collision with birds. Because it would probably never have occurred to anyone that our plane might be fired at from the ground while flying over a country friendly to us,” Aliyev said.
According to the Azerbaijani president, the plane was shot down by accident.
“Therefore, admitting guilt, apologizing in a timely manner to Azerbaijan, which is considered a friendly country, and informing the public about this – these were measures and steps that should have been taken. Unfortunately, for the first three days, we heard nothing from Russia except for some absurd theories,” said Ilham Aliyev.
He also stated that from the very first day, Azerbaijan has supported an international investigation into the incident and has already rejected Russia's proposal to have the Interstate Aviation Committee investigate.
“But we categorically refused. The reason is clear. Because it is no secret that this organization consists mostly of Russian officials and is headed by Russian citizens. Objectivity factors could not be fully ensured here. If we had seen fair and reasonable steps by Russia in the immediate aftermath of the accident, we probably would not have objected. But we saw that attempts to cover up the case were quite obvious,” the Azerbaijani president emphasized.
As for why the plane could not land at the nearest airports and why it flew to Aktau, Ilham Aliyev stated that these questions will be answered once the black boxes are opened.
“There are various hypotheses. Some believe that the plane was deliberately sent off course by ground handling services in Grozny because the plane was already out of control, and there was a high probability it would fall into the sea. If this had been the case, the cover-up attempts would have been successful, and the so-called bird theory would have been presented as the most likely version.
The pilots and the entire crew showed true heroism. The pilots showed both professionalism and heroism in controlling the plane that was out of control in various ways. Of course, they were experienced pilots and knew that they would not be able to survive this emergency landing. However, they displayed tremendous heroism to save the passengers, and it is thanks to them that there are survivors in this plane crash. It is thanks to them that a section of the fuselage did not burn, and it is thanks to them that we can clearly say today that the plane was shot down by Russia. This is a fact, and no-one can deny this fact. Again, we are not saying that this was done intentionally, but it was done,” Ilham Aliyev noted.
Azerbaijan demands an apology from Russia, an admission of guilt, punishment for the perpetrators, and compensation for the Azerbaijani state, as well as the affected passengers and crew members. According to Aliyev, only the first of these demands has been fulfilled so far.
On December 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Ilham Aliyev for the “tragic incident” that occurred in Russian airspace. Putin noted that during the “incident,” Grozny was attacked by Ukrainian drones and that the Russian air defense system was operational, but he did not admit that the plane was shot down by air defense.
