Putin apologises to Azerbaijan's Aliyev for 'tragic' plane crash

Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday offered his apologies to his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev that the incident with the AZAL airliner occurred in Russia’s airspace and conveyed his condolences to the families of the plane crash victims.

"Vladimir Putin offered his apologies that the tragic incident had occurred in Russia’s airspace and once again conveyed his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the plane crash victims and wished those injured the quickest recovery," the press office said in a statement, TASS news agency reported, quoting the Kremlin press office on Saturday.

This comes a day after Russia and Ukraine put the blame on each other for the plane crash. Chief of Russia's civil aviation authority Dmitry Yadrov had said, "Ukrainian military drones were carrying out terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure... at the time," adding that the plane made two unsuccessful attempts to land.

Meanwhile, Ukraine had stuck to claiming Russia's involvement and said, "Russia must be held responsible for the downing of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane."

Earlier on December 25, Azerbaijan declared a national day of mourning for the victims of the tragic crash of an Embraer 190 passenger plane operating a Baku-Grozny flight.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed an official order to observe the day of mourning in response to the tragedy on Wednesday.

Aliyev, who was in Russia's airspace en route to St Petersburg for a summit at the time, ordered his flight to return upon learning of the accident.

The aircraft with flight number J2-8243 crashed near Aktau Airport in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan's Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES) reported 28 survivors, while rescue operations were underway.

There were 67 people on board, including 62 passengers and five crew members, Azerbaijan Airlines said on X, Xinhua news agency reported.

Kazakh media said the passengers aboard included 37 citizens from Azerbaijan, 16 from Russia, six from Kazakhstan, and three from Kyrgyzstan.

The initial cause of the tragedy appeared to be a bird strike.

The MES dispatched 52 personnel and 11 units of equipment to the site, where the aircraft was found to be on fire.

The Embraer 190 aircraft was designed to carry between 96 and 114 passengers, depending on its cabin configuration. The aircraft could fly up to 4,500 km.

According to FlightAware, the aircraft took off from Baku 11 minutes ahead of schedule. While flying over the Caspian Sea, it issued an emergency signal.

Azerbaijani media reported that the aircraft was unable to obtain permission to land in Grozny due to fog, leading it to be redirected to Makhachkala and later to Aktau.

Online flight tracking apps showed the plane flying over the Caspian Sea and heading towards its destination in Chechnya. As the plane entered Russia's territorial borders, it started circling near the airport. Following this, it requested an emergency landing.

At 6:28 a.m. local time, the plane crashed a few kilometres away from the airport.

According to FlightRadar24, the plane was exposed to "strong GPS jamming, which made the aircraft transmit bad ADS-B data."

Azerbaijan Airlines assured that more information would be provided, while local authorities and emergency services were investigating the crash.