Even as a probe was starting of the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines airliner in Kazakhstan, speculation was mounting about why the plane went down.

Officials in Russia and Kazakhstan are urging people to wait for an investigation into the deadly Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash before assigning blame.

Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that the process of working on a gas pipeline project to China through Kazakhstan has been launched. Experts believe that the route can become an alternative to the Power of Siberia —2 project,

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,

HAUNTING footage shows passengers on board the doomed Azerbaijan Airlines flight just moments before it crashed – killing 38 people. Dozens of passengers, including children, miraculously

Russia’s state aviation authority said the Azerbaijan Airlines plane had been trying to make an emergency landing. The Kazakh authorities said that at least 29 people survived.

An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger aircraft crashed near Kazakhstan's Aktau Airport close to the Caspian Sea on Wednesday morning.

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.

Russians shot down an Embraer 190 aircraft of AZAL Airlines, which crashed in Kazakhstan. It is reported that the aircraft was likely downed by a Russian Pantsir anti-aircraft missile and gun system operating in automatic mode,

The Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 flight left Baku, Azerbaijan, on Christmas to Grozny, Russia. Instead, the plane crashed in Aktau, Kazakhstan.

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