Azerbaijan After crash: Baku suspends flights to many Russian destinations
Following the crash of an Azerbaijani passenger plane in Kazakhstan with 67 people on board, the airline Azerbaijan Airlines is suspending its connections to seven Russian cities.
27.12.2024, 12:03
SDA
From this Saturday, there will be no more flights to Sochi, Volgograd, Ufa, Samara, Mineralnye Vody, Grozny and Makhachkala, the company announced in Baku, according to the Azerbaijani news agency Turan. Previously, the Russian aviation authority had again temporarily banned take-offs and landings at some airports in the country for safety reasons. No details were given.
In Russia, airports repeatedly temporarily suspend operations when Ukrainian drone attacks are deployed. According to Azerbaijan Airlines, a plane returned to Baku on Friday because the airspace at the Russian destination airport Mineralnye Vody in the North Caucasus was closed.
Following the crash of the passenger plane in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, it is suspected that the aircraft may have been damaged by the explosion of an anti-aircraft missile in the North Caucasus before its planned landing in Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya. Investigations into the cause of the crash are ongoing. So far there are no official results. Azerbaijani state media reported that a delegation from the General Prosecutor's Office in Baku was traveling to Grozny as part of the investigation.
Kazakh airline suspends flights to Yekaterinburg
According to the statement, Azerbaijan Airlines will continue to fly to the airports in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Astrakhan, Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk. In Kazakhstan, the airline Qazaq Air suspended flights from the capital Astana to the Russian metropolis of Yekaterinburg on the Urals for a month for security reasons. Flights to Omsk and Novosibirsk in Siberia will continue, however.
The Azerbaijani Embraer 190 aircraft crashed on Wednesday near the Kazakh city of Aktau on the coast of the Caspian Sea while attempting to land. 38 people on board were killed and there were 29 survivors. Photos of the tail section of the ill-fated aircraft show damage that resembles the impact holes of shrapnel from anti-aircraft weapons. The Embraer's two flight recorders were found on Thursday, according to Kazakh sources.
