ASTANA: An Azerbaijani passenger plane that crashed in December after being diverted from Russia to Kazakhstan had suffered external damage and was riddled with holes in its fuselage, according to a report published on a Kazakh government website on Tuesday.

Thirty-eight people were killed when the Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane crashed on Dec 25 near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after re-routing across the Caspian Sea from southern Russia.

Azerbaijan`s President Ilham Aliyev said in December the plane had been damaged by accidental shooting from the ground in Russia. Moscow has not confirmed this.

Following the crash, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a rare apology to Aliyev for the `tragic incident` in Russian airspace, but the Kremlin did not say Russia had fired at the plane, only noting that a criminal case had been opened.

The preliminary report was issued under global aviation rules designed to draw lessons to prevent future accidents, rather than assigning blame or liability.

It was cautiously worded and did not say what had caused the extensive damage to the plane, including its stabilisers, hydraulics and trim systems.

A senior Azerbaijani government official said that the external impact referred to in the report was from a Russian surface-to-air missile.

`The Azerbaijani side possesses a fragment of a Pantsir-S missile, which was extracted from the aircraft and identified through international expertise, the source said.

It was the first time that a Baku government source has claimed to have physical proof that Russia shot down the plane, a Brazilian-manufactured Embraer E190. No comment was immediately available from Russian officials late on Tuesday evening.-Reuters