Undercover US agents brought down our new Superjet: Russia’s extraordinary claim about crash which killed 45
State’s GRU military intelligence source says Russians are investigating theory crash was ‘industrial sabotage
Aircraft was on a demonstration flight aimed at securing lucrative orders when it slammed into a mountain killing all 45 passengers and crew
Russian intelligence official claims US have ‘special technology’ capable of jamming signals from the ground or causing systems to malfunction
Spy sources in Moscow today made the astonishing claim that a US undercover operation may have sabotaged a new Russian Superjet plane that crashed in Indonesia two weeks ago.
The aircraft was on a demonstration flight aimed at securing lucrative orders when it slammed into a mountain killing all 45 passengers and crew.
‘We are investigating the theory that it was industrial sabotage,’ a GRU military intelligence source said.
The extraordinary Cold War-style claim echoes high-level allegations in Moscow that the US used powerful lasers to zap a Russian Mars probe seven months ago.
Other satellite launches – there have been half a dozen failures in the last 18 months – might be the work of US sabotage, raising the spectre of a sustained campaign against its technology by American secret services, it has been argued.