At least 15 dead and 19 injured after Russian military plane crashes near Ukraine

A Russian military plane crashed Monday in a residential area of ​​the city of Yeysk, along the shores of the Sea of ​​Azov, near Ukraine, Russia’s defense ministry said.

The latest balance indicates that the accident caused at least 15 deaths, including three children, and 19 injuries, according to the emergency operations headquarters of the Krasnodar region.

After counting 13 victims, rescuers found “another dead person,” said the governor of the Krasnodar region, Veniamin Kondratiev.

Authorities say the Russian military plane crashed into a building in the city of Yeisk. Eyewitnesses warned that the entire nine-storey building had gone up in flames, Russia’s TASS news agency said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was notified of the fire and ordered that “all necessary assistance be given to the victims of the military aircraft incident,” the Kremlin told state news agency TASS.

“The plane’s fuel caught fire at the site of the Sukhoi 34 crash in a residential courtyard”the ministry said, as images on social media, filmed by witnesses, showed a massive fire in a building.

Cited by the Associated Press, the ministry says the accident was caused by an “engine failure” and added that the pilot and crew on board managed to eject and are “safe”.

⚡️The Russian Defense Ministry has confirmed that a Su-34 jet has crashed while gaining altitude during a training flight in Yeysk after taking off from one of the airports of Russia’s Southern Military District.

Video: eyewitness pic.twitter.com/gV6stBlEaD

– The Insider (@InsiderEng) October 17, 2022

A photo circulates where the pilot appears to have been thrown from the plane pic.twitter.com/6eQ1AIjQtk

— Mary Ilyushina (@maryilyushina) October 17, 2022

According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, quoted by Russian authorities, the fire spread to an apartment building, of which five of the nine floors were on fire and measuring approximately 2000 m2.

It was a training flight, the same source said.

For his part, the governor of the Russian Krasnodar region, Benïamin Kontradtiev, said that “all firefighters and rescue units in the region are busy extinguishing the fire”.

The city of Yeysk is located on the Sea of ​​Azov, opposite the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which was destroyed by bombing and a long siege during the first months of the Russian offensive.

News updated at 20:06 on October 18