Mobile phone footage circulating online appeared to show the Azerbaijani Airlines plane making a steep descent before slamming into the ground in a fireball in western Kazakhstan.

The Embraer 190 was traveling to Grozny, Russia, but crashed near Aktau, Kazakhstan, killing 38 people onboard. Investigators are focusing on Russian air defense as the likely cause.

Three survivors of the downed Azerbaijani plane have described the moments on the flight before the crash. Flight attendant Zulfuqar Asadov said his arm was injured during the incident. On 25 December, 38 people died when an Azerbaijan Airlines flight, which had been due to land in Russia, crash-landed in Kazakhstan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has apologized to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev following the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane in Kazakhstan that resulted in 38 fatalities, according to the Kremlin.

The crash of an Azerbaijani airliner in Kazakhstan has killed 38 of 67 people on board. Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 was en route from Azerbaijani capital Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus on Wednesday when it was diverted for reasons that aren’t fully clear yet.

Putin says Azerbaijani passenger aircraft made multiple attempts to land in city of Grozny at time of Ukraine's drone attack - Anadolu Ajansı

Rashad Nabiyev, Ministry of Digital Development and Transportation of Azerbaijan, said that eyewitness accounts and holes in the fuselage of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan indicate external influence,

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.

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