• Results show plane struck byPantsir-S air defence system.
• Source says “No one claims that it was done on purpose”.
• Wrong to build hypothesis before investigation concludes, says Kremlin

BAKU: Russian air defences downed an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people, four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan’s investigation into the disaster told Reuters on Thursday.

Flight J2-8243 crashed down on Wednesday in a ball of fire near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from an area of southern Russia where Moscow has repeatedly used air defence systems against Ukrainian drone strikes.

The Embraer EMBR3.SA 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.

It crashed on the opposite shore of the Caspian after what Russia’s aviation watchdog earlier said was an emergency that may have been caused by a bird strike.

Officials did not explain why it had crossed the sea. The nearest Russian airport on the plane’s flight path, Makhachkala, was closed on Wednesday morning.

One of the Azerbaijani sources familiar with Azerbaijan’s investigation into the crash told Reuters that preliminary results showed the plane was struck by a Russian Pantsir-S air defence system. Its communications were paralysed by electronic warfare systems on the approach into Grozny, the source said.

“No one claims that it was done on purpose. However, taking into account the established facts, Baku expects the Russian side to confess to the shooting down of the Azerbaijani aircraft,” the source said.

Three other sources confirmed that the Azeri investigation had come to the same preliminary conclusion. Russia’s defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Qanat Bozymbaev said he could neither confirm nor deny the thesis that Russian air defences downed the plane.

Asked about the possibility that Russian air defences shot at the plane, the Kazakh transport prosecutor for the region where the plan came down said the investigation had not come to a firm conclusion yet.

The Kremlin, asked before the Reuters report about the idea that the aircraft had been shot at by Russian air defences, said that an investigation was ongoing and that it would be improper to comment until the inquiry came to its own conclusions.

“It is wrong to build hypotheses before the conclusions of the investigation,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.