Foreign experts attend study of Russian jet’s black box

Russian officials retrieved the black box after Syria’s special forces “liberated” rebel-held territory where the warplane was shot down by Turkey, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said earlier this month.

Wearing lab coats and gloves, technicians used screwdrivers, drills, and even a vacuum cleaner as they opened the device under the watchful eyes of military personnel and dozens of journalists in a live national television broadcast.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday lashed out at Turkey for the downing, saying that it is now “practically impossible” to overcome tensions with Turkey.

The black box recorded the last 40 minutes of the flight, but three of the eight chips from the flight recorder have been damaged and will need to be x-rayed, Andrei Semenov, head of Russian military’s information and analytic department, said.

Speaking after an examination of the device, Russian military spokesman Sergie Bainetov said: “Our specialists extracted the memory card, but unfortunately it sustained mechanical damage”. Gen, Sergey Dronov, deputy commander of the Russian Air and Space Forces, told the media. A Russian marine among those sent to rescue the pilots was also killed. The incidents came within a few days of the start of Russia’s air campaign in Syria on September 30 and led to worldwide condemnation. “It is in the same condition as it was found at the crash site”, Dronov said, according to Interfax news wire.

“In order to ensure maximal transparency and openness, we addressed foreign experts from 14 countries with an invitation to take part in the work [investigation] as observers”.

But the Russian leader also warned that no black box finding could assuage Moscow’s anger over the incident.

Putin said an analysis of black box would help determine downed jet’s flight path.

Moscow and Ankara are locked in a bitter spat over Turkey’s shooting down of Russian Su-24 jet on November 24, killing two Russian officers and sparking a furious war of words as well as economic sanctions from the Kremlin.