Azerbaijan President, Ilham Aliyev, points finger at Russia for passenger jet attack cover up

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev says a passenger plane that crashed last week, killing 38 people, had been damaged by shooting from the ground in Russia, and that some in Russia had lied about the cause of the disaster.

President Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologised to Aliyev for Wednesday’s “tragic incident” in Russian airspace involving the plane after Russian air defences engaged Ukrainian attack drones. A Kremlin statement did not say Russia had shot down the plane, only noting a criminal case had been opened.

“Our plane was shot down by accident,” Aliyev told state television on Sunday, adding that the plane had come under some sort of electronic jamming and had then been shot at while it was approaching the southern Russian city of Grozny.

“Unfortunately, in the first three days we heard only absurd versions from Russia,” Aliyev said, citing statements in Russia that attributed the crash to birds or the explosion of some sort of gas cylinder.

“We witnessed clear attempts to cover up the matter,” said the Azerbaijani leader, who has close ties to Russia and was educated at one of Moscow’s top universities.

Aliyev said he wanted Russia to accept it was guilty of downing the plane and to punish those responsible for fatally damaging the aircraft.

Putin and Aliyev held another telephone call on Sunday, the Kremlin said. It gave no details but on Saturday it said that both civilian and military specialists were being questioned about what had taken place.

Azerbaijan Airlines Flight J2-8243 crashed on Wednesday in a ball of fire near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from southern Russia where Ukrainian drones were attacking several cities.

The extremely rare publicised apology from Putin on Saturday is the closest Moscow has come to accepting some blame for the disaster.

Four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan’s investigation into the disaster told Reuters on Thursday that Russian air defences had mistakenly shot it down.

Aliyev’s remarks came as Azerbaijan paid tribute to the pilots and passengers of the plane.

Captain Igor Kshnyakin and co-pilot Alexander Kalyaninov, both ethnic Russians with Azerbaijan citizenship, and Hokuma Aliyeva, a flight attendant, were given full honours at a ceremony at the Alley of Honour in central Baku attended by Aliyev and his wife, Mehriban.

The pilots have been lauded in Azerbaijan for landing in a way which allowed 29 people to survive but led to their own deaths.

“The pilots were experienced and knew they would not survive this crash landing,” Aliyev said, praising them for sacrificing themselves by putting the nose down first in an attempt to save some of the passengers.

“In order to save the passengers, they acted with great heroism and as a result of this there were survivors,” he said.

The Embraer passenger jet had flown from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny, in Russia’s southern Chechnya region, before veering off hundreds of miles across the Caspian Sea.

Azerbaijan’s presidential office said the pilots had battled to control the plane - desperately trying to find a landing spot.

With holes in the fuselage, some crew injured, passengers praying for their lives in a de-pressurised cabin and the plane spiralling out of control, the pilots flew across the Caspian Sea towards their death in a crash landing.

The Alley of Honour is Azerbaijan’s most sacred modern burial ground - where prominent politicians, poets and scientists are laid to rest, including Heydar Aliyev, father of the current president.

Captain Kshnyakin’s daughter, Anastasia Kshnyakina, said her father was a dedicated pilot who took his responsibilities to his passengers extremely seriously.

“My father always said: when I take off, I am responsible not only for my life, but also for the lives of all passengers and crew members,” Kshnyakina said.

“With his last flight, he proved what a true hero should be.”