Authorities have recovered the second black box from the wreckage of the Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crashed on Wednesday, killing at least 38 people. Experts who have analyzed available evidence reportedly said that early indications point to the involvement of a Russian anti-aircraft system in the downing of the commercial jetliner.
A U.S. official told CNN that the Russian system may have hit the aircraft in a case of mistaken identity caused by poorly trained Russian units who fired carelessly believing they were aiming at Ukrainian drones, the outlet added.
Aviation experts have been skeptical of Russia’s claim that the flight was struck by a flock of birds, noting that the fuselage was pockmarked with holes compatible with shrapnel from a missile.
Two Azerbaijanis said government officials believe a Russian Pantir-S defense system damaged the plane, the New York Times reported.
Mark Zee of the OPSGroup, which monitors global airspace, also said images of fragments of the plane indicate that it was likely hit by a surface-to-air missile, according to a report by the Associated Press.
“Much more to investigate, but at high level we’d put the probability of it being a SAM attack on the aircraft at being well into the 90-99% bracket,” Zee said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment about the possible cause of the crash but said investigators are working to find the cause.
“The air incident is being investigated and we don’t believe we have the right to make any assessments until the conclusions are made as a result of the investigation,” Peskov told reporters.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan Airlines said it will suspend flights to a number of Russian airports until the conclusion of the investigation, citing safety reasons.
The company said preliminary results of the probe so far indicate “physical and technical external interference.”
Authorities hope the discovery of the second black box will provide additional information that will help investigators determine what happened to the doomed passenger jet.
The report said it will take about two weeks to read the black boxes recovered at the site.
The Azerbaijan Airlines flight, traveling from the Azerbaijan capital of Bauk to the Russian city of Grozny, went down on Christmas Day after it was diverted for reasons still unclear while trying to land in Aktau, Kazakhstan, after flying over the Caspian Sea, the Associated Press reported.
The crash killed 38 people among the 62 passengers and five crew members.
All of the 29 survivors were injured.
