A Russian military transport plane crashed into a cliff in Crimea on Tuesday, killing all 29 people on board, including six crew members and 23 passengers. The An-26 aircraft lost contact around 6 p.m. local time while conducting a scheduled flight over the peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Russian authorities reported that a technical malfunction is the likely cause, ruling out external interference such as missiles, drones, or bird strikes. The crash site was located in a mountainous forested area in the Bakhchisarai district, and a military commission has been dispatched to investigate.
The An-26, a Soviet-designed turboprop aircraft introduced in the late 1960s, has been involved in several fatal incidents in recent years, including crashes in Ukraine, South Sudan, and the Ivory Coast. Ukraine's military intelligence previously destroyed two Russian An-26 aircraft in a drone attack on Crimea in September 2023, targeting high-value Russian assets on the peninsula. Russian military plane crashes have been frequent since the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with multiple incidents involving transport and fighter jets reported in recent years.