MOSCOW. July 21 (Interfax) - The Boeing 777 of the Malaysia Airlines, which crashed in Ukraine on July 17, deviated from its flight path by 14 kilometers and tried to return within the corridor limits before it was shot down, said Lt. Gen. Andrei Kartopolov, the head of the main operative directorate of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff.
"Before Donetsk, the airplane was flying within the established corridor before deviating northward from the route. The maximum departure from the leftmost boundary of the corridor was 14 kilometers," he said at a briefing in Moscow on Monday.
"Subsequently, the Boeing was observed making a maneuver to return to the limits of the established aerial corridor. The Malaysian crew did not manage to complete the maneuver," Kartopolov said.
The deciphering of the flight recorders will help clarify the cause of the Boeing's deviation from the main route, the general said.
"What caused it to go outside the boundaries of the route - a navigation error by the crew and the execution of the commands from a Ukrainian air traffic controller, the Dnepropetrovsk air traffic control authorities - can only be answered after the deciphering of the flight recorders called the black boxes, and conversations with air traffic control services," he said.