The plane crashed in a mountainous forest area not far from Crimea's capital, Simferopol. Since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine, incidents involving Russian military planes have occurred frequently.
https://p.dw.com/p/5BUOTThe Antonov An-26 is a turboprop military transport aircraft [FILE]Image: Sergei Malgavko/ITAR-TASS/IMAGOAdvertisementA Russian military plane crashed in the Russian-annexed Crimea, killing 29 people on board, Russian news agencies reported Wednesday.
"According to reports from the scene, the six crew members and 23 passengers on board were killed," the TASS state news agency said, citing Russia's Defense Ministry.
Russia's Investigative Committee also confirmed the crash, without providing details of the death toll.
"On 31 March 2026, an An-26 aircraft crashed whilst in flight near the village of Kuibyshevo in the Bakhchysaray district of the Republic of Crimea. There were 7 crew members and 23 passengers on board," according to the committee.
The committee also said it has launched a criminal probe into a flight safety violation.
The Antonov An-26 military transport plane was carrying out a scheduled flight over the Crimean peninsula, according to media reports. Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has since administered the territory on the northern coast of the Black Sea.
The military lost contact with the plane around 6 p.m. local time (1500 GMT) on Tuesday.
The crash was caused by a technical malfunction with no "damaging interference" with the plane, Russian news agency Interfax quoted the Defense Ministry as saying.
Sources at the site of the crash told state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti that the military transport plane crashed into a cliff.
There have been multiple crashes involving Russian military aircraft since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In December last year, an An-22 aircraft crashed in Russia's Ivanovo region, northeast of Moscow, killing seven crew.
Two months earlier, in October, a MiG-31 fighter-interceptor jet crashed in the Lipetsk region during a landing attempt.
In December 2024, the Ilyushin Il-76 military cargo plane crashed shortly after takeoff from an airfield northeast of Moscow, killing all 15 people on board.
In October 2022, a Su-34 bomber crashed into a residential area of the southern Russian town of Yeysk.
