The Azerbaijan Airlines jet crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau on Wednesday after attempting to land at its destination in Grozny and then diverting far off course across the Caspian Sea.
A surviving passenger told Russian TV that an explosion appeared to take place outside the plane, with shrapnel flying in.
“Ukrainian attack drones at this time were making terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure in the cities of Grozny and Vladikavkaz,“ Yadrov said, referring to a nearby city.
“The pilot was offered other airports. He took the decision to go to Aktau airport,“ he added.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “until the conclusions of the investigation, we do not consider we have the right to make any comments and we will not do so”.
Azerbaijan’s pro-government website Caliber and several other media have cited unnamed Azerbaijani officials as saying they believed a Russian missile fired from a Pantsir-S air defence system caused the plane to crash.
Shrapnel
He said the explosion took place as the plane made a third attempt to land in Grozny in fog.
“I grabbed a lifejacket and saw there was a hole in it -- it was pierced by shrapnel.”
The daughter of an air steward on the plane told AFP that her father, Zulfugar Asadov, was being treated in hospital for injuries to his head and back but had not broken any bones.
Azerbaijan Airlines said Friday it was suspending flights to 10 Russian cities, “taking into account flight safety risks”.
Contacted by AFP, Azerbaijani government officials did not respond to questions about the possible causes of the crash.
“They have to accept this, punish those to blame, promise that such a thing will not happen again, express regrets and readiness to pay compensation,“ Musabekov told AFP.
He said the plane “was damaged in the sky over Grozny and asked to make an emergency landing”.
Instead the plane was not allowed to land at Grozny or nearby Russian airports and was “sent far away” across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan with “GPS switched off”, Musabekov said.
If air defences were operating near Grozny airport, “they should have closed the air space. The plane should have been turned around as it approached Grozny. Why wasn’t this done?” he added.
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