Russian officials said on Friday they had found the wreckage of a second fighter plane that Chechen rebels claimed to have shot down overnight, ITAR-TASS reported.
The first wreck was found a little earlier in the mountainous region of Itum-Kale, southern Chechnya, at an altitude of 2,600 meters (8,000 feet), according to a senior military official quoted by the news agency.
The evidence suggested that both pilots were killed in the crashes, the Russian military said.
Pro-independence rebels in Chechnya claimed they had shot down the aircraft but the Russian military said the warplanes had most likely crashed into a mountain peak.
A spokesman for the Chechen rebel military command told AFP by telephone on Friday that forces led by warlord Vakhi Arsanov had carried out the attack in the southern Shatoi district.
"All aircraft in territory under Chechen control will suffer the same fate," the spokesman added.
But the North Caucasus federal military headquarters denied the rebel claim.
"The possibility that Chechen guerrillas shot down the SU-25s is completely out of the question, as the flight was carried out in complex weather conditions at an altitude of 1,500 meters (4,900 feet)," a spokesman told Interfax.
The warplanes had apparently crashed after a "collision with a mountain peak while flying a maneuvered", he added.
The two planes were flying in poor weather conditions when they suddenly disappeared from radar screens and radio contact was lost with the pilots, the air force said.
A rescue operation was launched immediately.
Russian attack aircraft and helicopter gunships had carried out 14 bombing missions in the past 24 hours, targeting rebel bases in the republic's remote southern mountains, the military said.
An Su-25 was shot down last October in southern Chechnya. Chechen rebels said they had fired a US-made Stinger missile at the aircraft -- MOSCOW (AFP)
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