Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 caught fire as it tried to make an emergency landing in Aktau, southwestern Kazakhstan, on Wednesday. It was traveling from the Azeri capital Baku to Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya.

RUSSIA downed a passenger plane over Kazakhstan on Christmas Day killing 38 in a fireball crash, according to government sources. An initial investigation by the Azerbaijani government reportedly

A passenger plane flying from Azerbaijan to Russia with 67 people on board crashed in Kazakhstan Wednesday, authorities said.

ASTANA: The Kremlin on Thursday (Dec 26) cautioned against "hypotheses" over the crash of an Azerbaijani plane heading for Russia, killing 38 people, which Azerbaijan of

Kazakh media that an oxygen tank had exploded on board the Azerbaijan Airlines plane after a bird strike before the deadly crash. They claimed that flyers had started to fall unconscious before the flight crashed.

Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 had flown hundreds of miles off its scheduled route from Azerbaijan to Russia to crash on the opposite shore of the Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan. A Kazakh official said 38 people had been killed,

The head of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council's Center for Countering Disinformation, Andriy Kovalenko, also claimed that the crash was caused by the Russian air defence fire.

Several passenger plane crashes have occurred worldwide this year, including a Wednesday morning Azerbaijan Airlines wreck that has left dozens feared dead.

There are early indications that a Russian anti-aircraft system may have struck the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan, a U.S. official told ABC News.

Kazakh authorities have recovered the flight data recorder and an investigation is under way. Shortly after the crash, reports from Russian state-controlled TV said the most likely cause was a strike from a flock of birds.

MOSCOW -- The second black box was found at the plane crash site near Aktau, Russian media reported Thursday citing a Kazakh official. Law enforcement agencies of Russia and Azerbaijan will participate in the investigation of the plane crash, the report added.