RTFri, 18 Dec 2015 19:22 UTC
© RT
The Russian military have invited experts from 14 nations to work on the flight recorder of the Russian Su-24 bomber downed by Turkey,
but only two of them accepted their invitations, the Defense Ministry reported, before unsealing the device. The experts who agreed to participate in the study of the flight recorder, which is to provide further evidence into the highly controversial incident, come from the UK and China, Lieut. Gen, Sergey Dronov, deputy commander of the Russian Air and Space Forces, told the media.
Turkey shot down the Russian warplane on November 24 as it was conducting an anti-terrorist mission in a region close to the Turkish border. Ankara says it used force in response to a 17-second violation of its airspace and was fully justified in doing so.
Moscow denies that any violation happened, a statement that the flight recorder may help to confirm. The device was recovered by Syrian and Russian troops shortly after the incident and transported to Russia for investigation.
Moscow pledged that the study of the flight recorder would be carried out with maximum transparency to avoid any shadow of doubt that it had been tampered with.
The unsealing of the flight recorder was performed on camera on Friday. Technicians extracted three circuit boards with memory chips, some of which appeared to be damaged. Lieutenant General Sergey Baynetov, who heads the flight safety service of the Russian armed forces, told journalists that investigators would soon inform how much information could be read from the memory chips. The boards were locked in a safe after extraction.
The commission said a preliminary report into their findings may be expected Monday.
Comment: This kind of transparency is incredibly rare in the West, where governments like the US do not allow anyone to participate in their investigations. The Russians are smart enough to know that if they let the rest of the world be involved in decoding the black boxes, there can be no question as to what actually happened. Everything is right there for the world to see.
It's also pretty telling that so few international experts accepted Moscow's invitation to examine the downed jet's black box. If this truly was an issue 'between Russia and Turkey' (as the U.S. has proclaimed), then we would expect more countries involved. But clearly, there is larger influence at work that is keeping countries from participating and providing validation for what is found.
See also:
Putin invites UK gov and international experts to analyze black box of Russian jet - says it will expose Turkey for attacking them
Comment: This kind of transparency is incredibly rare in the West, where governments like the US do not allow anyone to participate in their investigations. The Russians are smart enough to know that if they let the rest of the world be involved in decoding the black boxes, there can be no question as to what actually happened. Everything is right there for the world to see.
It's also pretty telling that so few international experts accepted Moscow's invitation to examine the downed jet's black box. If this truly was an issue 'between Russia and Turkey' (as the U.S. has proclaimed), then we would expect more countries involved. But clearly, there is larger influence at work that is keeping countries from participating and providing validation for what is found.
See also: Putin invites UK gov and international experts to analyze black box of Russian jet - says it will expose Turkey for attacking them