Foreign Experts to Examine Black Box of Russian Warplane

Russian Federation says the plane did not leave Syria and posed no threat to Turkey.

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies agreed on Friday to send aircraft and ships to Turkey to strengthen Ankara’s air defenses on its border with Syria, the alliance’s chief said.

“The commission will discuss the situation calling upon global observers”, he added.

“We are concerned about the military build-up in the region”, Stoltenberg said, and said he hoped North Atlantic Treaty Organisation could repeat the same kind of air policing done in the Baltics, “without incidents and accidents”.

The “black box” of the Su-24 jet was officially opened in Moscow on Friday in front of journalists and diplomats.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that dealing with the Turkish leadership has become practically impossible.

They were Russia’s first combat casualties of the Syrian campaign, which it launched on September 30.

Turkey says the Russian jet strayed into its airspace and ignored repeated warnings, while Moscow insists it did not cross from Syria and accused Ankara of a planned provocation describing it as a “stab in the back”.

Sergei Dronov, the deputy head of Russian Aerospace Forces, reportedly said during a briefing that Russia has proof that the Su-24 jet did not violate Turkish airspace.

Sergei Dronov, the deputy head commander of the Russian air force, said the device was being analysed “openly for the Russian and worldwide public”.

The flight recorder was opened in a laboratory in the presence of experts from Russia, China and Britain, Xinhua news agency reported. The deciphering of the data will be decoded with special equipment – information gathered from the box, including the jet’s flight path and position, could help resolve the dispute between Russian Federation and Turkey over where the plane was hit.

But the Russian leader also warned that no black box finding could assuage Moscow’s anger over the incident. Moscow issued sanctions in response to the downing of the jet, including a block on Russian citizens embarking on holiday travel to Turkey which has cost the lucrative Turkish tourist industry billions of dollars.

Another spokesman, Colonel Andrei Semonov, said the device, which was located near the tail of the plane, had been damaged by the Turkish air-to-air missile as well as by its impact with the ground.