Brazil’s air force has extracted the data from two black box recorders belonging to a crashed Azerbaijan Airlines plane that Baku claims was downed by Russia on Christmas Day, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.
The Brazilian-made Embraer 190 crash-landed in Kazakhstan after being diverted from a scheduled landing in the Chechen capital, Grozny, in southern Russia. Azerbaijan believes the plane was shot down by Russian air defences, which Moscow says were operational in the area at the time.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, apologised that the “incident” occurred in his country’s airspace but has not responded to claims the plane was hit by Russian weapons.
The flight recorders, which capture cockpit dialogue and flight data from the plane, were analysed in Brasília, but Kazakhstan is in charge of releasing the results.
“All the data was handed over to the Kazakhstan investigation authority … in accordance with international protocols for investigating aircraft accidents,” Brazil’s air force said in a statement.
Russia said Grozny was being attacked by Ukrainian drones when the airliner approached to make its landing through thick fog.
The Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, a close ally of Moscow, has demanded an apology, admission of guilt and the punishment of those found responsible for the “criminal” shooting of the plane.
In a rare rebuke on Monday, Aliyev said Russia’s “concealment” of the causes and “delusional versions” being put forward “cause us justifiable anger”.
Investigators from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia traveled to Brazil, officials said. The black box data was examined by the aeronautical accidents investigation and prevention centre, a unit of the Brazilian air force.
