Leon Panetta suggests it's 'pretty clear' Russia 'responsible' for Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash
Former Secretary of Defense and CIA director Leon Panetta speculated that Russian air defenses may have caused the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane in Kazakhstan that killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured earlier this week.
"When you look at all the preliminary evidence here, I don't think there's any question, but that the Russians use some kind of air defense system that brought down that airliner," Panetta told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Friday night.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier this week that it was “necessary to wait for the end of this probe” before casting any speculation about the cause of the crash.
The plane was flying from Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, on Wednesday when it turned toward Kazakhstan and crashed while making an attempt to land.
Panetta's comment comes as U.S. officials and an Azerbaijani minister also suggested the plane was possibly hit by Russian air defense systems, citing expert analysis and survivor accounts.
"We'll wait for a formal investigation, but I think it's pretty clear that the Russians, here, were responsible for what happened to that airliner," Panetta added.
Passengers and crew members who survived the crash told Azerbaijani media that they heard loud noises on the aircraft as it was circling over Grozny. A flight attendant said he heard noises that sounded like something hitting the plane from the outside and denied a later claim from Kazakh officials that an oxygen canister exploded inside the plane.
Other survivors also recounted hearing explosions before the plan went down.
Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Transport said in a Telegram statement that investigators were looking into the incident along with officials from Azerbaijan, Brazilian experts, the airline and the Brazilian-owned aircraft manufacturer Embraer.
Azerbaijani news website Caliber reported that a preliminary investigation has found the flight was downed by a Pantsir-S Russian air defense system, stating Russia also used electronic warfare on the plane to disable it on the radar.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.