Investigators Try to Determine Cause of Deadly Plane Crash in Kazakhstan

Asia Pacific|Investigators Try to Determine Cause of Deadly Plane Crash in Kazakhstan

Authorities in several countries were trying to figure out on Thursday what happened to the passenger airplane that crashed a day earlier in Kazakhstan, on the shore of the Caspian Sea, killing 38 people on board.

The Embraer-190 plane, operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, had been flying on Wednesday morning to Grozny, in Russia’s Chechnya republic in the North Caucasus from Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, but was diverted because of fog, Russian state news agencies reported. Shortly afterward, it crashed while trying to make an emergency landing in Aktau, Kazakhstan, about 260 miles east of Grozny.

Of 62 passengers and five crew members on board, 29 survived, according to Kazakhstan’s authorities.

Aviation experts said that the plane had been subjected to radar jamming and spoofing near Grozny, and for part of its journey it did not send radar information. Flightradar24, a flight tracking service, said that the available data from the flight indicated that the plane had problems with altitude control, and cited images from the crash site that it said showed “puncture damage” to part of the aircraft.

The area around Grozny has been the scene of aerial battles in recent weeks involving drones, usually launched by Ukraine, and Russian air defenses. On Wednesday morning, around the time the plane had been scheduled to land in Grozny, a series of drone strikes took place, according to residents and local news media reports.

Osprey Flight Solutions, an aviation security company, said in a note to its clients on Wednesday that the plane had likely been struck by Russian air defenses “during an incident of misidentification.”

The Kremlin warned against making any immediate judgments about the cause. Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told reporters on Thursday: “The investigation is ongoing. We need to wait for its conclusions.”

President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan said on Wednesday that “the reasons for the crash are not yet known.”

“There are various theories, but I believe it is premature to discuss them,” he said during a meeting with government officials.

Azerbaijan Airlines said that it was suspending flights from Baku to Grozny and Makhachkala, in neighboring Dagestan, until investigations into the crash had concluded.

Qasim Nauman, Milana Mazaeva and Marc Santora contributed reporting.