Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday he apologized after the Azerbaijan Airlines flight crashed over Grozny, Chechnya, killing 38 people and injuring 29 others in southern Russia on Christmas Day.

A survivor of Wednesday’s Azerbaijan Airlines crash said the plane’s pilots tried to land in Grozny, Chechnya three times, followed by an explosion outside the plane, according to an audio recording shared by Russian TV channel RT.

Footage shows survivors walking and being dragged away from the tail section of a crashed Azerbaijan Airlines plane. Wednesday's flight from Baku to Grozny in the Russian republic of Chechnya was diverted across the Caspian Sea and went down near the western Kazakhstan city of Aktau.

An Azerbaijan Airlines statement on Dec. 27 blamed “interference” for the Christmas Day plane crash that killed 38 people.

The Azerbaijan Airlines passenger aircraft crashed near Kazakhstan's Aktau Airport on Wednesday morning, killing 38 of the 67 people on board, Kazakh officials said.

On 25 December, 38 people died when an Azerbaijan Airlines flight, which had been due to land in Russia, crash-landed in Kazakhstan. The plane is thought to have come under fire from Russian air defence systems as it tried to land in Chechnya before being diverted across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan,

NBC News' Daniele Hamamdjian reports on the ongoing investigation into the Azerbaijan plane crash in Kazakhstan and a survivor's recollection of hearing a loud bang in the aircraft before it crashed.

Thirty-eight of 67 onboard flight from Baku to the Chechen city Grozny believed to have been killed. Russian authorities cite bird strike.

Azerbaijan held a day of mourning on Thursday for the dozens of victims of an airliner crash in Kazakhstan, as questions were being asked over the cause of the disaster.