Azerbaijan’s state news agency Azertag has published a response to a press release issued the previous day by Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Transport, which stated that the origin of the damaging elements found on the AZAL aircraft that crashed near Aktau had “not been established.”
The article emphasizes that the investigation into the Embraer 190 crash is continuing in accordance with Annex 13 of the Chicago Convention, with the participation of ICAO as well as representatives of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Brazil, and Russia.
It notes that the interim statement by the Kazakh side points out the absence of damage to the oxygen cylinders, which rules out the version of an internal explosion. At the same time, foreign metallic objects were found on the aircraft — fragments of an explosive device associated with a weapons system — although the specific model of that system is not specified in the document. It is also stressed that the affiliation of this system with the air defense forces of the Russian Ministry of Defense had previously been mentioned in a political statement by the President of the Russian Federation.
The publication further notes that both the Kazakh report and the shared position of experts from Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Brazil, and ICAO indicate that the aircraft lost control and crashed not due to technical reasons, but as a result of external impact.
