The Russian Federal Air Transport Agency – “Rosaviatsia“, today announced that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday decided to change its route. The plane was supposed to land in Grozny in Chechnya. According to "Rosaviatsia", the route was changed due to thick fog and an air alert issued in Chechnya about an attack by Ukrainian drones, Reuters reported, BTA reported.
The regulatory agency said that the captain of the flight was offered other airports to land at, but he chose the Kazakh Aktau. “Rosaviatsia“ promised to provide full cooperation to Kazakh and Azerbaijani investigators.
Russia has said it is important to wait for the investigation to conclude to understand what happened. “Rosaviatsia“ also said that on the day of the crash, while the plane was making two attempts to land, Ukrainian drones attacked the Chechen capital Grozny.
“At that time, Ukrainian military drones were carrying out terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure in the cities of Grozny and Vladikavkaz,“ wrote the head of “Rosaviatsia“ Dmitry Yadrov on the “Telegram“ app. Yesterday, four Azerbaijani officials told Reuters that the plane was hit by a Russian air defense system.