I've just listened again carefully to the audio recording from 5 APUs captain at post #57.
???????????? ?????? ??????????? ??????? ???????????? Boeing ? ???????????? - ????????? «??????»
(That link should take you there - if not, go to post #57)
I was struck by the calm normality of the crew voice at the end. He acknowledged the change of QNH to 997, then said "Going around." Tower responded with "contact approach 121.2". Crew said "121.2, bye bye".
After that there's some Russian speech, presumably with another aircraft, and we don't hear the change to approach frequency.
But if that was the last thing heard from 981, it sounded completely normal, with no apparent stress or sign of trouble.
Of course, we don't know how much editing there was in the recording.
airsound