No explosion onboard crashed military jet, more time needed to ascertain cause: Russia

Moscow: Russia's Transport Minister Thursday said that equipment on the military jet that crashed in the Black Sea was functioning "abnormally", but that it was too early to say what caused the crash.

"It is obvious that the equipment was functioning abnormally. Why that happened is up to experts to work out," Minister Maxim Sokolov told journalists, adding that preliminary conclusions would likely be released in January. 

There was no explosion onboard the Syria-bound Russian military plane that crashed in the Black Sea at the weekend, but terrorism has not been ruled out as a possible cause, an official said today.

"There was no explosion onboard, I can say that for certain," said Sergei Bainetov, head of flight safety for the Russian Air Force. 

"But an act of terror is not necessarily an explosion, so are not discarding this version," he added.

With AFP inputs