BAKU >> Russian air defenses downed an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people, four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan’s investigation into the disaster told Reuters on Thursday.

Flight J2-8243 crashed down on Wednesday in a ball of fire near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from an area of southern Russia where Moscow has repeatedly used air defense systems against Ukrainian drone strikes.

The Embraer passenger jet had flown from Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to Grozny, in Russia’s southern Chechnya region, before veering off hundreds of miles across the Caspian Sea.

It crashed on the opposite shore of the Caspian after what Russia’s aviation watchdog earlier said was an emergency that may have been caused by a bird strike.

Officials did not explain why it had crossed the sea. The nearest Russian airport on the plane’s flight path, Makhachkala, was closed on Wednesday morning.

One of the Azerbaijani sources familiar with Azerbaijan’s investigation into the crash told Reuters that preliminary results showed the plane was struck by a Russian Pantsir-S air defense system. Its communications were paralyzed by electronic warfare systems on the approach into Grozny, the source said.

“No one claims that it was done on purpose. However, taking into account the established facts, Baku expects the Russian side to confess to the shooting down of the Azerbaijani aircraft,” the source said.

Three other sources confirmed that the Azeri investigation had come to the same preliminary conclusion. Russia’s Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Qanat Bozymbaev said he could neither confirm nor deny the thesis that Russian air defenses downed the plane.

Asked about the possibility that Russian air defenses shot at the plane, the Kazakh transport prosecutor for the region where the plan came down said the investigation had not come to a firm conclusion yet.

The Kremlin, asked before the Reuters report about the idea that the aircraft had been shot at by Russian air defenses, said that an investigation was ongoing and that it would be improper to comment until the inquiry came to its own conclusions.

“It is wrong to build hypotheses before the conclusions of the investigation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

WRECKAGE

Footage shot by passengers on the plane before it crashed showed oxygen masks down and people wearing life vests. Later footage, showed bloodied and bruised passengers climbing out of the plane. There were 29 survivors.

Pictures of the plane wreckage showed what appeared to be some sort of shrapnel damage to the tail section of the plane.

Aviation security firm Osprey Flight Solutions said in an alert to airlines on Wednesday that footage of the wreckage and the circumstances around the airspace in southwest Russia indicated the possibility that the airliner was hit by some form of anti-aircraft fire.

Ukrainian military drones have repeatedly targeted Russia’s southern regions in recent months, triggering Russian air defenses. Russia and Ukraine have been at war since Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry had reported the downing of 59 Ukrainian drones over several regions.

Some were reportedly shot down in closed air space over regions bordering Ukraine, including the Sea of Azov. Flight operations were reportedly temporarily suspended at Russia’s Kazan Airport due to the activity.

In addition, publicly available ADS-B flight tracking data shows that the Azerbaijani aircraft experienced GPS jamming throughout its flight over southwest Russia, the alert said.

Russia uses advanced electronic jamming equipment to confuse Ukrainian drone location and communication systems and a large number of air defense systems have been deployed to shoot down the drones.

The U.S. National Security Council referred queries to Azerbaijani and Kazakhstani officials as the investigation continues.

Additional reporting by Tamara Vaal in Astana, Joanna Plucinska, Filipp Lebedev in London.