A Russian military plane has crashed in Russian-occupied Crimea, killing 29 people on board, Russian news agencies reported on Wednesday.
“According to reports from the scene, six crew members and 23 passengers on board the plane were killed,” the TASS state news agency said, citing Russia’s Defense Ministry.
Russia’s Investigative Committee also confirmed the accident without providing details of the death toll.
According to the committee, “On March 31, 2026, an An-26 aircraft crashed during flight near the village of Kuibyshevo in the Bakhchisarai district of the Republic of Crimea. There were 7 crew members and 23 passengers on board.”
The committee also said it had launched a criminal investigation into the flight security violation.
What else do we know about the Russian military plane crash in Crimea?
According to media reports, the Antonov An-26 military transport aircraft was performing a scheduled flight over the Crimean peninsula. Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has since occupied the region on the northern coast of the Black Sea.
The military lost contact with the aircraft around 6 pm local time (1500 GMT) on Tuesday.
Russian news agency Interfax quoted the Defense Ministry as saying that the accident was caused by a technical malfunction and that there was no “harmful interference” to the aircraft.
Sources at the crash site told state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti that the military transport plane struck a rock and crashed.
Accidents involving Russian military aircraft since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine
There have been several crashes of Russian military aircraft since the Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In December last year, an An-22 aircraft crashed in the Ivanovo region, north-east of Moscow, Russia, killing seven crew.
Two months earlier, in October, a MiG-31 fighter-interceptor jet had crashed in the Lipetsk region during a landing attempt.
In December 2024, an Ilyushin Il-76 military cargo plane crashed shortly after takeoff from an airfield northeast of Moscow, killing all 15 on board.
In October 2022, a Su-34 bomber crashed into a residential area in the southern Russian city of Yeisk.
Edited by: Carl Sexton