The president expressed these words during a meeting with the families of the crew members who died in the crash and the surviving flight attendants.
“I can firmly say that the blame for the death of Azerbaijani citizens in this disaster lies with the representatives of the Russian Federation. And we demand justice, we demand that the guilty be punished, we demand complete transparency and humane behavior,” the president emphasized.
According to him, the process of encrypting the black boxes continues. Azerbaijan hopes that the preliminary results of the investigation will be known soon, which will be a significant turning point in the case and the punishment of the guilty.
The President of Azerbaijan explained that the operation “Cover” in Grozny, where the Embraer 190 aircraft flying from Baku with 67 passengers was supposed to land, was announced after the airliner was shot down from the ground.
“If timely measures had been taken to close the airspace over the city of Grozny, the rules of ground handling had been followed and the coordination of the actions of the armed forces and civil services of the Russian Federation had been ensured, this tragedy could have been avoided,” he said.
However, as I. Aliyev said, Russia is afraid of this topic.
According to the president, the Kremlin’s attempts to “hush up this incident and insist on raising absurd versions (about the causes of the catastrophe)” cause Azerbaijan “surprise”, “regret” and “just indignation”.
He added that if Baku “from the first minutes or hours” had seen the desire of Russian officials to objectively investigate the tragedy, it would have agreed to the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) deciphering the black boxes. And since the Azerbaijani side had doubts about his objectivity, the black boxes were sent to Brazil.
AFP/”Scanpix” photo/An Azerbaijan Airlines plane flying from Baku to Grozny crashed in Kazakhstan
I. Aliyev was also interested in why the plane from Chechnya was diverted to Aktau, and clarified that Baku does not have any information about it yet.
“Was it due to the decision of local controllers, or did the pilots realize that the electronic warfare equipment in Russian airspace would no longer allow them to land, and made such a decision themselves?” <...> Naturally, when the black boxes are opened, all this information will appear,” the president said.
The plane crashed in the city of Aktau on December 25. There were 67 people on board, including five crew members. 29 of them survived and 38 died. According to the preliminary version, the cause of the crash was a Russian anti-aircraft missile launched in response to a drone attack over Grozny.
The projectile exploded near the aircraft, damaging its hull. The crew asked for permission to make an emergency landing, but none of the Russian airports gave permission to land. Therefore, the plane went to the Kazakh city of Aktau across the Caspian Sea.
Ukrainian intelligence has previously expressed the opinion that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed in Kazakhstan because it was shot down by a Russian Pantsir-S1 probe over Russian territory.
December 28 The Kremlin reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin called Azerbaijani President Aliyev and “apologized for the fact that the tragic incident with the plane took place in Russian airspace”, “expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and wished the injured a speedy recovery.”
December 29 I. Aliyev revealed some facts about The crash of the Embraer 190 of Azerbaijan Airlines in Kazakhstan. He said the plane was damaged near Grozny and lost control due to the use of electronic jamming.
Azerbaijan also said that the plane’s tail was badly damaged by “fire that was exposed to the plane from the ground.” However, the country does not believe the aircraft was shot down intentionally.
Source: www.15min.lt
