Azerbaijan's Transport Minister Rashad Nabiyev says the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed on 25th December was subjected to "external interference" and damaged inside and out as it tried to land in Russia's southern republic of Chechnya.
Nabiyev says all the survivors, without exception, stated they heard three blast sounds when the aircraft was above Grozny.
The plane is thought to have come under fire from Russian air defence systems before being diverted across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan, where it crashed with the loss of 38 lives.
The Kremlin has refused to comment, but the head of Russia's civil aviation agency said the situation in Grozny was "very complicated" at the time, and a closed-skies protocol had been put in place.
In a video statement posted on Russia's Tass news agency, Head of Rosaviatsia, Dmitry Yadrov, says Ukrainian combat drones were launching terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure in the cities of Grozny and Vladikavkaz.
He says because of this a 'Carpet plan' was introduced in the area of Grozny airport, providing for the immediate departure of all aircraft from the specified area.
He adds there was dense fog in the area of Grozny airport.
Later yesterday, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that the US had seen "early indications" that the plane may have been downed by Russian air defence, but declined to comment further.
The Washington Post reported Kirby had said the indications the US had seen went beyond the widely-circulated photos of the damaged plane.
Ukrainian presidential spokesman Andriy Yermak has said Russia must be held responsible.
Azerbaijan Airlines said on Friday that a preliminary inquiry had blamed both "physical and technical external interference", without going into details.
However, aviation experts and others in Azerbaijan believe the plane's GPS systems were affected by electronic jamming, and it was then damaged by shrapnel from Russian air-defence missile blasts.
Source: BBC
