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.

Russia's Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologised to Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, for a "tragic incident" which happened in Russian airspace involving an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane that crashed on Wednesday.

Azerbaijan Airlines, the carrier of the passenger jet that crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, said preliminary investigations have found the disaster occurred “as a result of physical and technical external interference,