Russian war jet data fails to solve Turkey crash riddle

Investigators in Moscow said they were unable to retrieve information from the damaged black box of a Russian warplane shot down by Turkey last month, data the Kremlin hoped would support its version of what happened.

Russia’s Defence Ministry publicly opened the recorder last week, hoping its contents would confirm Moscow’s assertions that the bomber did not stray into Turkish air space and was maliciously downed.

“Retrieving the information and a read out of flight data . . . has proven to be impossible because of internal damage,” said Sergei Baimetov, the Russian Air Force’s deputy head of flight safety.