The flight data recorder from a Russian jet downed last month by Turkey is not yet readable, Russian military officials said.
“Reading the memory cards is not yet possible due to internal damage,” said Sergei Bainetov, the military’s deputy head of flight safety.
At a press briefing in Moscow, Bainetov said 13 of the 16 memory chips from the Su-24 warplane’s “black box,” or flight data recorder, were destroyed and the remaining three were badly damaged. Officials had hoped to prove the jet had never entered Turkish territory.
The downing killed a Russian pilot and sparked an international incident last month. Ankara says it warned the plane multiple times that it was violating Turkish airspace but Russia maintains the plane was in Syria.
After an emergency NATO meeting convened at Turkey’s request, officials expressed concern Turkey shot down the plane instead of escorting it out of its airspace.
Russia has announced sanctions against Turkey in retaliation for the downing.
Investigators will call on specialists for help extracting the data, Bainetov said.