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At least 22 people, including military cadets, were killed and two others seriously injured when a Ukrainian air force plane crashed near Kharkiv in the east of the country, the Interior Ministry said.
Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko confirmed the death toll, described the incident as a “shock” and said the cause of Friday’s crash was under investigation.
Images of the accident posted by officials on social media showed the smoking wreckage of the Antonov An-26 transport plane.
“Most of [the dead] they were students ”at the Kharkiv National Air Force University, the air force said in a statement.
There were 27 people on board, 20 cadets and seven crew members, he added.
Twenty-two deaths have been confirmed, two wounded and “the search for three more people continues,” emergency services said.
IEN
(@BreakingIEN)#Chuhuiv: Ukrainian authorities say at least 22 people were killed in a military plane crash in northeastern Ukraine. The AN-26 military aircraft was carrying a total of 28 passengers when it crashed and burst into flames in Chuhuiv, Kharkiv Oblast.
The injured are in “critical” condition, regional governor Oleksiy Kucher said on Facebook.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the accident as a “terrible tragedy” and said he would travel to the Kharkiv region on Saturday.
“We are urgently creating a commission to investigate all the circumstances and causes of the tragedy,” he wrote on Facebook.
The plane crashed around 8:50 p.m. local time, two kilometers from the Chuhuiv military air base, emergency services said.
In photos released by the emergency services, firefighters in helmets and reflective clothing sprayed the debris of the planes with jets of water.
The plane’s body burst into flames upon landing and firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze after an hour.
The city of Chuhuiv is about 30 km southeast of Kharkiv and 100 km west of the front line, where government forces are fighting against pro-Russian separatists.
The presidency said that according to preliminary information the transport plane crashed during a training flight.
The top diplomat of the EU, Josep Borrell, sent his condolences on behalf of the bloc.
“My thoughts are with the families and friends of those who lost their lives,” he tweeted.
Several military aircraft have crashed in Ukraine during training flights in recent years.
A pilot died in December 2018 after his Su-27 fighter crashed during landing in the Zhytomyr region.
Two months earlier, the same fighter model crashed in a neighboring region during the Clear Sky 2018 joint military exercises between Ukraine and NATO countries, killing the American and Ukrainian pilots on board.
In 2002, a Su-27 fell into the crowd at an air show in Lviv, western Ukraine, killing 77 people and wounding 165 others.
The Antonov An-26 is a light transport aircraft designed in Ukraine during the Soviet era.
It is 24 meters long with a wingspan of 29 meters and can fly at a cruising speed of 440 kilometers per hour.
In 2014, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down, killing 298 people in an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
Moscow has denied the findings of international investigators that a Russian BUK missile struck the Malaysian Airlines flight.
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