Azerbaijan Airlines said Friday its preliminary investigation findings indicate its airliner crashed because of "external physical and technical interference." The Biden administration said there's reason to think the cause of that interference was the Russian military, the Washington Post reports. "We have seen some early indications that would certainly point to the possibility that this jet was brought down by Russian air defense systems," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Friday. He said the evidence is more than images of the remains of the plane, which crashed Wednesday, killing 38 people.
At least some aviation experts who looked at those photos said the plane probably was struck by an antiaircraft missile, per NPR. Puncture holes in the plane's tail section "point to the possibility of an explosion potentially of an antiaircraft missile near the aircraft," said John Cox. Russia first said a bird strike might be to blame. "A bird strike doesn't cause the kind of damage that we're seeing on this aircraft," Cox said. The flight had taken off from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku for Grozny, the capital of Chechnya in southern Russia.
A flight attendant told a news site in Azerbaijan that she felt three loud blows, as if something was hitting the outside of the plane. The oxygen masks fell after the first. Passengers and crew were injured by objects that pierced the fuselage, an Azerbaijani government minister said. "The injured Russian citizens also reported hearing three explosions over Grozny," Rashad Nabiyev said. Russia has denied shooting down the plane, but its aviation agency Rosaviatsia said Friday that heavy fog and an Ukrainian drone attack at the time "complicated" conditions at Grozny Airport. (Missiles are now the biggest threat to airline passengers, experts say.)
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