It was honestly pretty obvious from the first videos that came out. You have: The claim of a bird strike, but not during landing or (shortly after) takeoff, b

It was honestly pretty obvious from the first videos that came out. You have: The claim of a bird strike, but not during landing or (shortly after) takeoff, but at cruising altitude. That HAS happened, but is incredibly rare. The of a bird strike taking out both engines, which is another possible, but very rare thing. It is unlikely that a double-engine failure would have allowed the jet to cross the Caspian Sea and make two approaches to the airport they ended up crashing near. The video of the jet on approach showed no movement of any control surfaces, which supports the notion of a total hydraulic failure. The video of the jet on approach showed it engaged in phugoid oscillation, which is consistent along with the above video with the pilots having only minimal control over some surfaces, or more likely, being forced to use thrust vectoring alone to control the craft. Videos taken by passengers showing shrapnel damage, including some very striking video and stills of the pattern before the crash. Videos taken on the ground of the tail-section, which show a pattern of shrapnel that is consistent with the annular shrapnel pattern you'd expect from a continuous-rod warhead, which is what you'd expect from the Pantsir system. So all of that circumstantial evidence is striking, and all points in one direction. Now the people who have access to the black boxes are claiming that it was a shoot-down, and frankly I'd be inclined to believe them.