The Saratov Airlines Flight 703 vanished after take-off and crashed on February 11, only minutes after leaving Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport.
A transcript from a recovered flight recorder has been published by RBC, revealing the last conversation between captain Valery Gubanov and his co-pilot Sergei Gambaryan.
Mr Gubanov told his co-pilot to gain altitude instead of slanting the plane downwards, according to the transcript.
Mr Gubanov said: “I understood you wanted to… but instead, you’re going down.”
He later said: “Why are you going down? Where? Altitude! Altitude! Altitude! Up!”
The audio recording cut off as he said: “That’s it, we’re f*****.”
Sources at the Federal Air Transportation Agency and the Interstate Aviation Committee have confirmed the flight transcript as authentic, according to RBC.
Investigators revealed distorted speed data may have caused the crash due to the pilots’ failure to activate pressure measurement equipment.
The Interstate Aviation Committee said the crash occurred due to varying data on the plane’s speed data.
The plane was flying to Orsk and crashed in the Ramensky district outside of Moscow.
The plane took off at 11:27 (GMT) on February 11 and contact was lost only four minutes later.
All 71 people on board the flight were confirmed to have died, including 65 passengers and six crew members.
Russia has suffered two major plane crashes since 2015 when the Russian Airbus A321 carrying tourists crashed in Egypt and killed 224 people.
A Russian military transport plane also crashed in Syria on Tuesday and killed all 39 people on board.