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Russian media leaks of radio communications from Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 were not sourced from its flight recorder, a senior Kazakh official said Friday, coming a week before authorities are expected to release preliminary crash investigation results.
The Azerbaijani passenger jet crashed in western Kazakhstan on Dec. 25, killing 38 of the 67 people onboard. The flight had been diverted from its scheduled landing in the southern Russian city of Grozny.
Moscow has acknowledged that its air defenses were active in the area at the time, saying that Ukrainian drones had been attacking Russian territory. However, civilian air authorities in Russia have suggested that heavy fog and a bird strike were to blame for the crash.
Last week, the Telegram news channel Baza, which has purported links to Russian law enforcement, published what it said was a transcript of radio communications between air traffic control and Flight 8243. In the transcript, the aircrew told air traffic control they had suffered a bird strike and an oxygen tank explosion.
“There’s a big difference between what was published and the contents of the black box,” Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said during a televised press briefing, referring to the Baza leak.
“Just because someone posted something on the internet doesn’t mean it’s the truth,” he said, adding that the flight recorder data contains “a little more” than what has been disclosed so far.
Baza later clarified that its report was based on air traffic control communications, not cockpit recordings from the flight recorder.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, a close ally of Moscow, has accused Russia of shooting down Azerbaijan Airlines plane and concealing the true cause of the disaster. The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin called Aliyev multiple times to express regret over the incident occurring in Russian airspace but did not accept responsibility.
Preliminary crash investigation results are expected by Feb. 1, with the plane’s black boxes currently under analysis in Brazil.
