The Azerbaijani Airlines plane which crashed in Kazakhstan resulting in 38 deaths and 29 injuries was initially scheduled to land in the city of Grozny. Russia claimed on Friday that the plane was unable to land there due to Ukrainian drones attacking the city.
Dmitry Yadrov, the Chief of Russia’s Civil Aviation Authority claimed that the situation in Grozny at that time was complicated as the civilian infrastructure of the city was under Ukrainian military drone attack.
He informed that the skies of the area were closed resulting in the necessity for the aircraft in the vicinity to leave the airspace. He said the plane made two attempts to land at the airport in Drozny but was unsuccessful and therefore was offered other airports to land in and it decided to land in the Aktau airport in Kazakhstan.
Ukraine has blamed Russia for the airplane crash citing the involvement of an attack by Russia’s air defense system to be the cause of the crash.