It was Christmas Day when a passenger plane crashed in western Kazakhstan, near the city of Aktau. Out of 67 people on board, 38 died and

Azerbaijan Airlines’ Embraer 190 was en route from Baku to the Russian city of Grozny when it was diverted for reasons yet unclear and crashed while making an attempt to land in Aktau in Kazakhstan.

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.

The flight was en route from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to Grozny, in Russia’s south, when it diverted and attempted an emergency landing in 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."

Two U.S. military officials tell NBC News the U.S. has intelligence indicating that the Russians may have misidentified the Azerbaijan Airlines flight that went down earlier this week, and shot it down with an air defense system.