A Russian Su-34 military plane crashed on Monday (October 17th) in the city of Yeisk, near the border with Ukraine, killing fifteen people, according to Anna Minkova, deputy governor of Russia’s Krasnodar region on Tuesday. She said the number of injured was 43 injured, including nine children. Among these forty people, 25 are still in hospital, including three in critical condition.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “expresses its deepest condolences to the families who lost their loved ones in this disaster”Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The investigators said they favored the trail of a “technical fault” on the aircraft, a Sukhoi 34, to explain the accident that occurred the day before in this city of 90,000 inhabitants located opposite the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, devastated by Russian forces at the start of the conflict.
The crash caused a fire in a building where about 600 residents live. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, quoted by Russian agencies, the fire ignited five of the nine levels of the building, covering some 2,000 m2. On social networks, images filmed by witnesses show a gigantic fire.
The pilots ejected
Russian President Vladimir Putin has dispatched Health Minister Mikhail Murashko and Emergency Situations Minister Alexander Kurenkov to Yeisk, according to a Kremlin statement. This city, located on the Sea of Azov, is directly opposite the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, ravaged by bombardment and a long siege in the first months of the Russian offensive.
The Ministry of Defense also indicated that the pilots of the bomber had been able to eject. It was a training flight according to the same source, which evokes a technical problem after that“one of the engines caught fire on takeoff”.
The Investigative Committee of Russia, in charge of the main criminal investigations, indicated on Telegram that it was opening a “criminal investigation” after the Sukhoi 34 accident.