Azerbaijan Airlines crash ‘probably caused by Russian air defence fire’

A passenger injured in the Azerbaijani Airline plane crash is taken to hospital (AP)

Aviation experts have said that Russian air defence fire was probably responsible for the Azerbaijani plane crash that killed 38 people and left all 29 survivors injured.

Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 was en route from Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted for reasons still unclear and crashed while making an attempt to land in Aktau in Kazakhstan after flying east across the Caspian Sea.