The Antonov-26 transport plane was carrying 20 cadets and seven crew members when it crashed.
Kiev, Ukraine:
The death toll climbed to 23 on Saturday following the crash of a Ukrainian air force plane mainly carrying cadets in the east of the country, emergency services said.
The Antonov-26 transport plane was carrying 20 cadets and seven crew members when it crashed on Friday night two kilometers (about a mile) from the Chuguiv military air base near the city of Kharkiv.
Another body was found under the charred remains of the plane early on Saturday, emergency services said, bringing the death toll to 23. Two people were also injured.
“The search for two more people is continuing,” the services said in a statement.
The cause of the accident is currently under investigation.
Ukraine’s SBU security service said it was a training flight, but cadets from the Kharkiv National Air Force University were not involved in piloting the flight. the plane.
He said in a statement that, according to initial reports, the piloting officer reported the failure of one of the engines, and seven minutes later the plane struck the ground.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Taran said “the plane probably took off with its wing” and caught fire after that.
“The flight recorder is now on the plane, after analyzing the information recorded on it, it will be possible to draw conclusions,” Taran said, quoted by the Defense Ministry.
The body of the plane caught fire on landing and firefighters were able to extinguish the fire after an hour.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who previously described the accident as a “terrible tragedy”, is due to visit the Kharkiv region on Saturday.
The region, which borders Russia to the northeast, declared a day of mourning on Saturday.
Many grieving Ukrainians mourned the victims of the tragedy on social media.
“We extend our sincere condolences to the families and relatives of the cadets, officers and crew members killed and injured in the crash of the An-26 plane,” the US Embassy in Ukraine wrote on Facebook.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
