The crash was caused by a missile launched during joint Ukrainian-Russian military air-defence exercises[3] at the Russian-controlled training ground of the 31st Russian Black Sea Fleet Research center on Cape Opuk near the city of Kerch in Crimea.

It proceeded at an altitude of 36,000 feet (11,000 m) over the Black Sea when the Russian ground control center in Sochi suddenly lost contact with the airliner.

[8] Occurring less than a month after the September 11 attacks in the United States, the crash was initially suspected by Russian officials to be an act of terrorism, and they denied American reports that it was caused by an S-200 missile.

[9][10][11] Later, the Moscow-based Interstate Aviation Committee ruled that the crash was caused by an accidental Ukrainian S-200 missile strike during military training exercises staged off Cape Opuk in Crimea.

Defense ministry spokesman Konstantin Khivrenko noted that "neither the direction nor the range (of the missiles) correspond to the practical or theoretical point at which the plane exploded.

[21][22] On 7 October 2001, it was reported that the main fuselage of the aircraft, believed to contain the black box recorder, was thought to be at a depth of 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), which was too deep for divers to retrieve.

"[24] Commenting on the agreement, Gen. Oleksandr Kuz'muk, the former minister of defense who lost his job after the accident,[25] told media that "the payments were a humane action, not the admission of guilt.

[24] The lawyer representing the plaintiffs argued[citation needed] that the fault of the Ukrainian government was effectively proven by the fact that it had negotiated the compensations for relatives of the Israeli victims.

On 22 August 2007, a Kyiv appeals court dismissed the victims' relatives' suit against the defence ministry, ruling that military of Ukraine bore no liability for the accident.