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Putin says downing of Russian plane was an 'enemy act'
01:28 - Source: CNN

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Russian media says "black box" damaged on jet shot down by Turkey on November 24

Turkey and Russia have waged a war of words over the downed jet

CNN  — 

The “black box” from a Russian warplane downed by Turkey in November was damaged and was not immediately readable, according to Russia’s state-run English-language Sputnik news agency.

The damage may make it difficult for Russia to determine whether the Su-24 jet was flying over Turkish territory on November 24, as Turkey says. Russia says the jet was in Syrian airspace near the border.

Thirteen of 16 microcircuits were destroyed, and the remaining three were damaged, reported Sputnik, citing the Russian Defense Ministry. One microchip from the flight recorder may be readable, Sputnik said.

“The readout of data from memory blocks is impossible at this point due to internal damages,” Lt. Gen. Sergei Bainetov, head of the Defense Ministry’s flight safety department, said in a press conference on Monday, according to Sputnik.

Assistance may be sought from Russian scientific institutions that have the expertise to read data directly from the microchip, Bainetov said.

One of the two pilots was killed in the air by fire from the ground, according to Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti. The fate of the second pilot wasn’t disclosed.

Tensions between the two nations have increased since the jet went down.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has refused to apologize, saying the plane was given ample warning and was in Turkish airspace.

Russian President Vladimir Putin denies both assertions, saying the aircraft was downed over Syria. He called the shooting down of the plane “a stab in the back.”

Russia has imposed a series of economic sanctions on Turkey, banning the import of some Turkish goods, imposing restrictions on travel, barring some Turkish companies from doing business in Russia and suspending a $12 million gas pipeline project between the nations.