Airliner Crashes, 38 Dead: Shootdown by Russia Eyed

Plane falls from the sky in Kazakhstan; experts see signs of antiaircraft strike

- MATTHEW LUXMOORE AND BENJAMIN KATZ

At least 38 people were killed when a passenger jet headed for Russia crashed in Kazakhstan in an incident that Ukraine officials and aviation experts said was likely caused by Russian antiaircraft fire.

The Azerbaijan Airlines plane was flying from Baku in Azerbaijan to Grozny in Russia and diverted its course over an area where Moscow's air defenses have battled Ukrainian drones in recent weeks. The flight-carrying 62 passengers and five crew members-crashed near the city of Aktau in western Kazakhstan after turning around and flying east over the Caspian Sea. As many as 29 passengers survived.

Citing assessments of footage of the crash, the damage to the aircraft, and recent military activity, aviation-security firm, Osprey Flight Solutions, said in an alert to airlines that the flight "was likely shot down by a Russian military air-defense system."

"Video of the wreckage and the circumstances around the airspace security environment in southwest Russia indicates the possibility the aircraft was hit by some form of antiaircraft fire," Matt Borie, chief intelligence officer at Osprey, said in an interview.

A Ukrainian national-security official, Andrii Kovalenko, said in an X post that the plane "was shot down by a Russian air-defense system," citing visible damage to the plane.

"Russia should have closed the airspace over Grozny but failed to do so," Kovalenko said. "The plane was damaged by the Russians and was sent to Kazakhstan instead of being urgently landed in Grozny to save lives."