Holes in plane that killed 38 people indicate it was shot down by a Russian surface-to-air missile

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.

An online video showed holes in the tail section of the plane that crashed Thursday in Kazakhstan.

Some aviation experts say the holes seen in the plane’s tail section after the crash indicate that it could have come under fire from Russian air defense systems fending off a Ukrainian drone attack.

Mark Zee of OPSGroup, which monitors the world’s airspace and airports for risks, said the analysis of the fragments of the crashed plane indicate with a 90-99% probability that it was hit by a surface-to-air missile.

Yan Matveyev, an independent Russian military expert, noted that the images of the crashed plane’s tail show damage compatible with shrapnel from the Russian Pantsyr-S1 air defense system.

Asked about the claims that the plane had been fired upon by air defense assets, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday that “it would be wrong to make hypotheses before investigators make their verdict.”