Ukrainian missile may have downed Russian airliner - latest
Source: BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union - Political
Publication date: 2001-10-05
Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Kiev, 5 October:
The possibility that a Ukrainian missile shot down the Russian Tu-154 passenger plane during Thursday's air defence exercise cannot be ruled out, a source in the Ukrainian Defence Ministry told Interfax on Friday following a late night meeting of a special group probing into the crash.
While the range of the missiles fired in the exercise from Cape Opuk in the
Crimea is officially 200 km, a missile could be automatically re-targeted to the
passenger plane that was 100 km farther, because its reflection of radar signals
was stronger than that of the training target, the source said.
The pilot of the Armenian An-24 plane's report of seeing two explosions
corroborates this view, the source said. This is consistent with the way the
missile operates, he said. It explodes in the vicinity of the target. The second
explosion may have occurred when fragments hit the plane.
The Defence Ministry is now analysing the data of instrument control over the
missile flight, the source said.
