Passengers on the Embraer plane that crashed say they heard at least one loud bang before the crash
In addition to the horror of the accident, the passengers’ first-person narratives give an idea of what may have caused the disaster.
Azerbaijan Airlines suspended a number of flights to Russian cities on Friday and said it considered the crash to be caused by what it called “external physical and technical interference.” He did not detail what this interference was.
Four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan’s investigation into the crash told Reuters on Thursday that Russian air defenses mistakenly shot down the plane.
Russia said it was important to wait for the official investigation to finish its work to understand what happened.
The Embraer passenger jet had flown from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny in Russia’s southern Chechnya region, before veering hundreds of kilometers across the Caspian Sea.
The plane crashed on the opposite shore of the Caspian Sea after what Russia’s aviation watchdog said was an emergency that may have been caused by a bird strike.
