Croatian authorities are quizzing neighbouring countries for clues, after a drone of unknown origin flew undetected over three NATO member states, crashing near Zagreb.

Mysterious Drone Crash Leaves Croatia Baffled

The field where the crater was created by the aircraft. Photo: N1 Zagreb.

Mystery still surrounds an unknown drone of Soviet origin, a Tu-141, which crashed in Croatia’s capital on Thursday night, awakening residents of Zagreb’s south-western Jarun Lake district. 

It still hasn’t been confirmed where the drone came from originally, although it reached Croatia from Hungary. 

At an emergency press conference, Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomasevic said it was “amazing that no-one was injured … This is an unprecedented event. Something like this never happened in Zagreb before.”

Only the Ukrainian army uses 1970s-era Soviet drones. But former Ukrainian ambassador to Croatia Markian Lubkivsky insisted the drone was not Ukrainian, as they have different markings, Croatian broadcaster HRT reported.

President Zoran Milanovic said that while it was a serious incident, it was probably a case of someone losing control over the drone, Index.hr reported.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said they were “checking everything”. 

“We are communicating with Hungary, Romania and Ukraine. We have to check everything in every case. It’s not normal that a drone that size flies to Croatia and falls down. It’s a good thing it didn’t fall into an area where there were people, onto a house, and fortunately, there were no casualties … We need to raise alertness.” Plenkovic added.

“NATO’s integrated air and missile defence tracked the flight path of an object which subsequently crashed in Zagreb. The Croatian authorities have announced that they are investigating the incident,” Vecernji list daily reported.

Some speculated that the drone was programmed to fly to Yarun in Ukraine, but ended up by mistake in the Jarun district in Zagreb.

The question of how the drone managed to fly over the skies of three NATO member states undetected, and where it started from, awaits an answer.

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