Mysterious drone crashed in Zagreb
View of the drone crash site in Zagreb. ANTONIO BRONIC / REUTERS
A military drone crashed on Thursday evening in a Zagreb park, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic told Croatian media on Friday in Versailles, where he is attending a summit of EU European leaders.
Zagreb is located about 550 kilometers in a straight line from the nearest border with Ukraine. The car flew over Romania and Hungary, and then crashed in Croatia, which, according to the Croatian authorities, is a member of NATO.
The drone entered Croatian airspace from the east of the country, flying at a speed of 700 km/h at an altitude of 1,300 meters, the Croatian Defense Ministry said in a statement. According to the Chief of the General Staff of the Croatian Army, Robert Gran, this is “a rather serious incident.”
According to the Romanian Air Surveillance System, the aircraft was detected and tracked: it entered Romanian airspace from Ukraine around 23:23 and left Romanian airspace at around 23:26, bound for Hungary. A NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that “the Alliance’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense tracked the flight path of the object, which later crashed in Zagreb.”
According to The War Zone, the craft is likely a Soviet-era Tu-141 Strizh reconnaissance drone that must have been damaged. Ukraine is the only known country that uses the Tu-141, which is 14 meters long, has a wingspan of about 4 meters and weighs just over 6 tons.
Croatian police were called to the scene after an explosion was heard on the outskirts of Zagreb. She found a large crater and two parachutes in the wooded area. Tu-141 has parachutes for soft landing.