Romania's Ministry of National Defence on Friday issued a press statement on the topic of the drone that fell in Zagreb after it had flown over Romania and Hungary on Thursday evening, saying that the drone had been less than three minutes in Romania's air space.

“The Romanian air surveillance system picked up the signal of a low surface aircraft, Thursday March 10, most probably an UAV, that crossed the national air space for a very short time, under three minutes,” reads the press release.

“The aircraft entered the Romanian air space at approximately 2323 HRS, coming from Ukraine, and left the national air space at approximately 2326 HRS, heading towards Hungary.”

“The very short time for which this aircraft had flown through national air space, the high speed and low altitude, as well as the terrain and weather conditions at the time, did not allow engaging of other procedural means in order to further identity the aircraft,” reads the press release.

NATO and Hungary comment on issue

NATO’s integrated air and missile defence tracked the flight path of an object which subsequently crashed in Zagreb, an official of NATO told Hina on Friday.

“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 this incident,” a NATO spokesman, Daniele Riggio, said in his brief answer to HINA’s query.

According to some speculations, a Tu-141 “Strizh” reconnaissance drone is believed to have arrived in Croatia from Ukraine, flying across Romania’s and Hungary’s airspace.

Hungary’s defence ministry stated on Friday that the country’s air defence detected and tracked the drone that crossed its airspace on Thursday night before it crashed in Zagreb, and that the object was identified as a TU-141 drone which has recently been used as a training target.

The air defence service of the Hungarian Armed Forces detected a flying object on its radars on Thursday night, the Hungarian ministry said in a statement, carried by the Hungarian MTI news agency.

The object was later identified as a TU-141 drone which has recently been used as a training target, the Hungarian ministry said, adding that both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries had used such drones.

The drone had already been detected in Ukraine’s airspace, the Hungarian ministry said. Once it entered Hungarian airspace it was tracked by the air defence service until it exited the airspace, they added.

The TU-131 is a Soviet-era unmanned reconnaissance drone.