Israeli experts join crash probe

Grieving relatives arrive at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion airport

SOCHI, Russia -- Military experts from Israel flew into Russia on Sunday to join the investigation into the explosion of a Russian jet over the Black Sea.

Russia has asked Ukraine for details of a missile fired in military tests on Thursday amid suspicions that a military blunder could have caused the explosion.

The Sibir Airlines Tu-154 crashed while en route from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Novosibirsk, Siberia, with at least 77 passengers and crew on board.

Investigators say objects found at the crash site could not have come from the plane itself.

The Israeli experts, equipped with specialist equipment, are in the port of Sochi to join the salvage operation and to help identify the victims, many of whom were Israeli citizens.

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"Our aim is to help those who need our help," Lieutenant-Colonel Shimon Dahan, deputy head of the Israeli team, told Reuters. "The delegation consists above all of police who specialise in the identification of bodies."

The team also includes military rabbis, who will ensure that bodies are treated according to correct Jewish procedure.

Just 15 bodies have been found so far. Four of the corpses have been identified by relatives. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin was unhappy with the information Ukraine had provided so far.

Ukrainian forces were carrying out live-missile firing exercises on the Crimean Black Sea peninsula on Thursday when the jet exploded and crashed into the sea around 200 km (125 miles) away.

Ukraine's military first denied its forces had shot down the airliner saying the plane had been out of range of the exercises -- but a day later, Ukrainian Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh appeared to retreat from those denials, saying the missile theory "had a right to exist."

Putin spoke by telephone to Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, on Saturday.

"The truth is the most important thing to us and we are ready to work with the whole world in order to find it," Kuchma was quoted as saying during a visit to Poland on Saturday.

Tu-154: The 29th air disaster involving the plane since its inception in 1968

U.S. officials have said a spy satellite detected the rocket plume of a Ukrainian missile close to the crash area, and that the time of the launch coincided with the disaster.

They have also said they had no reason to believe the disaster was an act of terrorism.

Relatives of those who died have been arriving in Sochi over the weekend as the salvage efforts continued.