The Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan this week suffered physical “external interference”, the airline and Azerbaijan’s transport minister said Friday, citing preliminary results of an investigation,

It was Christmas Day when a passenger plane crashed in western Kazakhstan, near the city of Aktau. Out of 67 people on board, 38 died and

Sources told Reuters the plane had been hit by Russian fire. "It was as if it was drunk - not the same plane anymore," one passenger recalled.

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.

A passenger jet operated by Azerbaijan Airlines crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, after diverting from an area of southern Russia where Moscow has repeatedly used air defence systems against Ukrainian attack drones.

Thirty-eight passengers and crew died when Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 from the airline’s hub at Baku to Grozny, the capital of Russia ‘s Chechnya, crashed short of Aktau airport in Kazakhstan; 29 survived.

An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger aircraft crashed near Kazakhstan's Aktau Airport close to the Caspian Sea on Wednesday morning.

An Azerbaijani airliner has crashed in Kazakhstan after being diverted, killing 38 of 67 people on board. Some things to know about the crash and the speculation about a possible cause: How did the plane crash?

Thirty-eight of 67 onboard flight from Baku to the Chechen city Grozny believed to have been killed. Russian authorities cite bird strike.

Azerbaijan held a day of mourning on Thursday for the dozens of victims of an airliner crash in Kazakhstan, as questions were being asked over the cause of the disaster.