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.

On 25 December, 38 people died when an Azerbaijan Airlines flight, which had been due to land in Russia, crash-landed in Kazakhstan. The circumstances around the crash remain unclear, but limited evidence so far suggests it may have been damaged by missiles fired by a Russian air-defence system as it tried to land in Chechnya.

A survivor of Wednesday’s Azerbaijan Airlines crash said the plane’s pilots tried to land in Grozny, Chechnya three times, followed by an explosion outside the plane, according to an audio recording shared by Russian TV channel RT.

An investigation into the deadly crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines flight in Kazakhstan earlier this week came after the passenger plane experienced “physical and technical external interference,” the carrier said Friday.

The Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed experienced "external physical and technical interference," the airline says.

An Azerbaijani minister suggested Friday that an airliner that crashed this week was hit by a weapon, citing expert analysis and survivor testimony indicating that the plane was struck from the outside.

The statement is the closest officials have come to confirming mounting suspicions that the plane was downed by a Russian air-defense system.