“Difficult situation”: Rosaviatsia commented for the first time on the Embraer accident

“The situation that day and at that time in the Grozny airport area was very difficult. At that time, Ukrainian combat drones launched terrorist attacks against civilian infrastructure in the cities of Grozny and Vladikavkaz,” Yadrov noted.

He noted that in the area of ​​the airport where Embraer was to land, the “Carpet” mode was introduced, in addition there was dense fog and there was no visibility at an altitude of 500 m.

The decision to divert the plane to Aktau, according to the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency, was made by the pilot of the plane. “The plane commander made two attempts to land the plane in Grozny, but were unsuccessful. The commander was offered other airports. He decided to go to Aktau airport,” Yadrov said.

In his words, the Russian side expressed to its colleagues from Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan its readiness to “cooperate in the investigation of this tragedy.” “It is necessary to carefully and completely verify all the circumstances of the incident,” emphasized the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency.

On December 25, a Kazakhstan Airlines plane flying from Baku crashed. The press service of Grozny airport then reported that the ship was diverted first to Makhachkala and then to Aktau due to fog. Azerbaijan Airlines said that, according to preliminary data, the cause of the plane crash was a bird strike.

The official causes of the accident have not been established. Social media users drew attention to holes in the crashed plane’s fuselage, suggesting the plane could have been shot down. One of the surviving passengers told RT that during the third attempt to land the plane in Grozny, “something exploded, and I wouldn’t say it was inside the plane.”

The Kremlin declined to comment on the reasons. “It would be a mistake to formulate hypotheses before the conclusions of the research. And we, of course, cannot do this,” said Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov.

There were 16 Russians on board the Embraer, the Kazakh Ministry of Transportation reported. According to him, 37 citizens of Azerbaijan, six from Kazakhstan and three from Kyrgyzstan were also traveling on the plane. According to the Russian embassy in Astana, 10 Russians were injured in the accident and are in hospitals in Aktau. In total 38 people died.