Azerbaijan Airlines plane 'shot down by Russian air defences' as 38 killed

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Experts have said that the Azerbaijan Airlines flight which crashed near to Aktau in Kazakhstan may have been hit by Russian air defence systems.

At least 38 people are known to have died on the flight, and Azerbaijan has held a national mourning the deceased. The plane had originally been flying on a relatively short journey between Baku in Azerbaijan and the Russian city of Grozny, but was diverted due to fog.

The front part of the plane was destroyed in the incident, however part of the rear fuselage survived the impact. Experts have suggested that markings on the aircraft indicate that it was hit by a surface to air missile, and not by a bird strike.

Justin Crump works for risk advisory company Sibylline, and analysed images of the damage inside and outside the aircraft. He told BBC Radio 4: "It looks very much like the detonation of an air defence missile to the rear and to the left of the aircraft, if you look at the pattern of shrapnel that we see." Azerbaijan state-run AnewZ channel said on Thursday that a preliminary investigation into the crash concluded that the plane was hit by shrapnel.