“We found parts of an aerial bomb inside the plane (…) and we can say at the present time that it was an aerial bomb used on Soviet-made planes,” the minister told the press.
The Croatian authorities explained that the aircraft “launched over Ukrainian territory” was a “Tu-141”, built in the seventies and eighties of the last century to meet the needs of the Soviet army, which was using it for reconnaissance missions.
The minister said that this unmanned aircraft, which weighs more than six tons, has undergone “modifications (…) according to all the evidence, in recent times.”
“The traces of explosives and other items that were found indicate that this aircraft was not intended for reconnaissance,” he added.
The minister did not say whether the bomb had exploded and was unable to determine what type it was. He pointed out that the plane’s wreckage and bomb fragments will be transported “to a military area, where a detailed analysis will be carried out.”
The plane crashed Thursday night, Friday, in a park in the capital Zagreb, near a university complex that houses 4,500 students and about 200 meters from a residential neighborhood, without causing any casualties. About forty cars parked in a garage were damaged.
The minister confirmed that the investigators had found the “black box” of the plane, which is supposed to allow, with the coordinates of the course recorded by the radars, to determine its starting point.
He announced that the incident would be raised during a ministerial meeting of NATO countries on Wednesday, especially the issue of “the failure that occurred in Romania and Hungary.”
Croatian authorities assert that the aircraft flew for approximately 40 minutes in Hungarian airspace and that Croatia was not informed of the matter. Before crashing in Zagreb, the plane flew for seven minutes in Croatian airspace, authorities said.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic expressed regret on Saturday at the poor reaction in NATO airspace.
#Denounces #NATOs #failure #Croatia #Russianmade #drone #crashed #Zagreb #carrying #aerial #bomb