AKIPRESS.COM - The Russian navigator who parachuted out of a warplane shot down by Turkey said Wednesday that there had been no warning before a missile slammed into the aircraft, giving him and the pilot no time to dodge the missile.

The navigator, Capt. Konstantin Murakhtin, was rescued by special forces troops who followed his radio beacon and negotiated his release from the insurgents who were holding him, NYTimes reports.

“There were no warnings from either the radio channel or visually, there was no contact at all,” he told the Interfax news agency from the Russian air base outside Latakia, Syria. The pilot, Lt. Col. Oleg A. Peshkov, was killed by ground fire from insurgents as his parachute descended.

Captain Murakhtin’s account directly contradicted that of Turkish officials, who said the pilots had been warned 10 times in five minutes not to transgress into Turkish airspace, even the sliver of territory that the plane crossed in 17 seconds.

The Russians claim that the warplane was shot down over Syria, not Turkey. It crashed about two and a half miles from the border, Russia said, and the pilots parachuted into Syria.