“The two missiles that were launched did not hit the plane directly; if that had happened, it would have crashed on the spot, but they exploded, perhaps as a self-destruction measure, a few metres away, about 10 metres,” Putin said.
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“And so the damage was caused, mainly not by the warheads, but most likely by the debris from the missiles themselves. That is why the pilot perceived it as a collision with a flock of birds, which he reported to Russian air traffic controllers, and all this is recorded in the so-called ‘black boxes.’”
The Embraer jet had flown from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny, in Russia’s southern republic of Chechnya, where the incident occurred, and had then travelled, badly damaged, another 450 kilometres across the Caspian Sea. Putin cautioned on Thursday that it would “probably take some more time” to fully investigate the crash’s causes.
A preliminary report published on a Kazakh government website in February found that the plane suffered external damage and was riddled with holes in its fuselage.
Aliyev was angry about the crash and has publicly criticised the initial reactions from Moscow which he said sought to cover up the cause of the incident.
On Thursday, he thanked Putin for personally monitoring the progress of the investigation into the deadly incident.
“I would like to express my gratitude once again for the fact that you deemed it necessary to highlight this issue at our meeting,” Aliyev told Putin.
Reuters
