Russia may have accidentally shot down the passenger plane that crashed in Kazakhstan yesterday.
The accusations come from several quarters, including from a British aviation security company.
Accusations are now coming from several quarters that Russia accidentally fired at the plane that crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, writes The Wall Street Journal.
Ukraine’s security adviser Andriy Kovalenko claims the plane was shot down in an area where Russia has previously shot down Ukrainian drones.
“Now Russia will do everything to hide its own guilt in the plane crash and the death of people,” Kovalenko writes on Telegram.
The British aviation security company Osprey Flight Solutions and a Russian military blogger also assess that Russia may have fired at the plane, based, among other things, on images from the wreckage.
38 died
The cause of the crash is thus under investigation, but an initial theory was that the plane collided with birds. That report came early from the Russian news agency Tass. However, “mysterious holes” have been found in the hull.
– If you get a flock of geese in the engines this can happen, but damage shown on the side of the hull is not usually a bird strike. Such penetrations can happen in hailstorms and lightning strikes, but no one has reported anything like that so it’s all becoming more and more of a mystery. Something is missing in the information here, undeniably, aviation expert Jan Olsson told TV4 Nyheterna on Christmas Day.
The plane was on its way from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in Chechnya. But the plane crashed three kilometers from the city of Aktau, right next to the Caspian Sea, after three failed landing attempts.
There were 67 people on board, including 62 passengers and five crew members. At least 38 people died and the others were injured.