Azerbaijan Airlines said on Friday that, according to preliminary results of the investigation, “external physical and technical interference” caused the crash of its Embraer 190 aircraft in Kazakhstan.
The statement said that the company would suspend flights to several Russian cities, including Mineralnye Vody, Sochi, Volgograd, Ufa, Samara, Saratov, Nizhny Novgorod and Vladikavkaz, starting Saturday.
“This decision, made in cooperation with the Azerbaijan State Administration for Civil Aviation, is based on the preliminary results of the investigation into the crash of the Embraer 190 aircraft on the Baku-Grozny flight. The suspension will remain in force until the investigation is completed,” it added.
An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane with 67 passengers on board, traveling from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to the city of Grozny, in the Russian Republic of Chechnya, crashed on Wednesday about three kilometers from the Kazakh city of Aktau, on the coast of the Caspian Sea.
Kazakh officials announced that 38 people died in the plane crash, while 29 survived.
