According to inofficial reports from the Azerbaijani government, a Russian missile is believed to have brought down the plane that crashed in Kazakhstan. Euronews reported on Thursday, citing government sources, that a fragment of a Russian surface-to-air missile had hit the plane.
It is possible that the Russian air defense mistook the Azerbaijani Airlines Flight 8243, which was a Ukrainian-made drone, for a threat, the report said.
Despite the pilots’ distress calls, the damaged plane was not allowed to land at any Russian airport and was instructed to fly over the Caspian Sea in the direction of Aktau in Kazakhstan, where it crashed just before the emergency landing. Thirty-eight people lost their lives in the crash, while 29 are believed to have survived.