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.

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.

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.

Russians who reviewed the transcript of the crew's conversations from the Baku-Grozny flight themselves admit that the air crash was caused by their air defense systems (ADS), according to Andriy Kovalenko,

"No one claims that it was done on purpose," an Azerbaijan official told Reuters. They added their government "expects the Russian side to confess."

Experts say evidence in the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Kazakhstan points to a possible midair explosion, not an encounter with a flock of birds.

The crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines flight prompted several airlines to suspend flights to Russia.