Russia warns against “hypotheses” of the “Azerbaijan Airlines” disaster.

The Russian government has warned against promoting “hypotheses” about the causes of the crash of a passenger plane bound for Russia that killed 38 people in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.

Footage of the shattered fuselage shows shrapnel damage, and some aviation experts have suggested that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane may have been shot down by air defense systems over the Russian republic of Chechnya.

Before the crash near the Kazakh city of Aktau, the plane was diverted across the Caspian Sea from its destination in Chechnya to western Kazakhstan.

Twenty-nine of the 67 people on board survived. A day of national mourning for the victims of the disaster was announced in Azerbaijan on Thursday.

“This is a great tragedy, which has become a great grief for the Azerbaijani people,” President Ilham Aliyev said on Thursday.

In Moscow, the press secretary of the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, said: “It would be wrong to put forward any hypotheses about the conclusions of the investigation. We certainly won’t do that, and no one should. We have to wait until the investigation is over. completed.”

The Embraer 190 plane took off from the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, on Wednesday morning. He was supposed to fly to Grozny in Chechnya, but was diverted due to fog, the airline said.

A passenger who survived told Russian television that he believed the pilot tried to land twice in thick fog over Grozny before “the third time something exploded … part of the plane’s fairing came off.”

The plane was diverted to Aktau Airport, about 450 km (280 miles) to the east. The footage shows the plane heading towards the ground at high speed 3km (1.9 miles) from the runway before bursting into flames on landing.

Kazakhstani authorities recovered the flight recorder and an investigation is underway. Shortly after the crash, Russian state television said the most likely cause of the crash was a flock of birds.

But such a collision usually results in the plane sliding toward the nearest airfield, aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia told Reuters. “You can lose control of the plane, but you won’t go off course as a result,” he said.

Justin Crump of risk consultancy Sibylline said damage to the interior and exterior of the plane indicated that Russian air defenses operating in Grozny could have been responsible for the crash.

“It looks very much like an anti-aircraft missile detonation behind and to the left of the aircraft if you look at the fragments that we can see,” he told BBC Radio 4.

Authorities in the nearby Russian regions of Ingushetia and North Ossetia reported drone strikes on Wednesday morning, Reuters reports.

Chairman of the Senate of Kazakhstan Ashimbayev Maulen emphasized that the cause of the disaster is still unknown.

“None of these countries – neither Azerbaijan, nor Russia, nor Kazakhstan – is interested in hiding information. All information will be open,” he said.

On board were mainly citizens of Azerbaijan, but there were also passengers from Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Video footage shows survivors crawling out of the wreckage, some with visible injuries. The injured are being treated in a hospital, and 11 are in intensive care, AFP reports.

Embraer, a Brazilian manufacturer, is a smaller competitor to Boeing and Airbus and has a strong safety record.