Isa Tzinbayev | AFP | Getty Images
Last week, 38 people were killed, damaged by ground-based shooting in Russia, and he said some people in Russia had lied about the cause of the disaster.
President Vladimir Putin Saturday apologized to Aliyev on Wednesday “tragic incident” The aircraft was added to Russian airspace after Russian air defenses targeted Ukrainian drone attackers. A Kremlin statement did not say Russia had shot down the plane, only that a criminal case had been opened.
“Our plane was shot down by accident,” Aliyev told state television on Sunday, adding that the plane had been hit by some kind of electronic jamming and then shot down as it flew over southern Russia. The city was approaching Grozny.
“Unfortunately, in the first three days we heard only ridiculous versions from Russia,” Aliyev said, referring to statements in Russia that attributed the crash to birds or the explosion of some kind of gas cylinder. was
“We have seen clear attempts to cover up the issue,” 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 admit it was guilty of downing the plane and punish those responsible for causing the fatal damage to the plane.
Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 crashed in a fireball near the Kazakh city of Aktau on Wednesday as Ukrainian drones were attacking several cities after diverting from southern Russia.
A rare public apology from Putin on Saturday is the closest Moscow has come to accepting some responsibility for the disaster.
Four sources familiar with the preliminary results of Azerbaijan’s investigation into the crash told Reuters on Thursday that Russian air defenses had shot it down by mistake.
Burial
Earlier on Sunday, Azerbaijan paid tribute to the pilots and passengers of the plane.
Captain Igor Kushnyakin and co-pilot Alexander Kalyanov, both ethnic Russians with Azerbaijani citizenship, and Hokuma Aliyeva, a flight attendant, were awarded full honors in a ceremony at the Alley of Honor in central Baku, where Aliyev and His wife Mehrban attended.
In Azerbaijan, the pilots were praised for landing in a manner that resulted in 29 survivors but their own deaths.
The Embraer passenger jet had flown from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny, in Russia’s southern Chechnya region, before flying hundreds of miles before plunging into the Caspian Sea.
Azerbaijan’s presidential office said after the still-unexplained incident over Russian airspace, the pilots were fighting for control of the plane – desperately trying to find a landing spot.
With holes in the body, some of the crew injured, passengers pleading for their lives in a low-pressure cabin and the plane spiraling out of control, the pilots flew to their deaths in a crash landing across the Caspian Sea. .
“An emergency landing was successfully carried out only because of the courage and professionalism of the pilots,” Azerbaijan’s presidential office said.
The Street of Honor is Azerbaijan’s most sacred modern burial ground — where prominent politicians, poets and scientists are laid to rest, including the late father of the current president, Heydar Aliyev.
Captain Kshnyakin’s daughter, Anastasia Kshnyakina, said her father was a dedicated pilot who took his responsibilities to his passengers very 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,” Kushnikina said.
“With his final flight, he proved what a true hero should be.”