Government sources told Euronews that the plane had requested an emergency landing at several Russian airports but was reportedly denied permission, forcing the pilots to continue toward Aktau.

A day after an Azerbaijani airliner’s crashed in Kazakhstan, aviation experts say the plane most likely went down after being hit by Russian air defense systems.

Aviation experts said Thursday that Russian air defense fire was likely responsible for the Azerbaijani plane crash the day before 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