An airplane belonging to the Azerbaijan Airlines company Photo: Ewan Partridge / Alamy / Alamy / Profimedia
An Azerbaijan Airlines flight to the southern Russian city of Mineralnie Vody returned to Baku on Friday after it was announced that part of the airspace in southern Russia had been closed, the Russian state agency TASS said, as quoted by Reuters.
Azerbaijan Airlines also announced on Friday that it was suspending flights to seven Russian cities, according to Russian media.
Russian news agency Interfax reported that Azerbaijan Airlines will continue to operate flights to six major Russian cities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The decision comes after one of the Azerbaijan Airlines planes crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday during a flight to Groznyi in Chechnya.
Early signs indicate that a Russian system hit Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 before this to crash near the city of Aktau.
Officials in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia urged people not to speculate on the cause of the crash until investigations are complete.
Brazilian authorities and representatives of the plane’s manufacturer, Embraer, are expected to arrive in Kazakhstan on Friday, according to Azerbaijan’s state news agency. Even on Friday, the authorities began the process of reconstructing the events that led to the collapse.
The Kremlin, asked on Friday about reports that Russian air defenses shot down the plane, said it had nothing to add and that an investigation into the crash in Kazakhstan was ongoing.
