11 June 2024 , 09:07
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Two people have died after a Soviet-style strike fighter crashed in the mountains of southern Russia.
In the third warplane Vladimir Putin has lost in just three days, the Sukhoi Su-34 crashed in the mountains of North Ossetia, near the remote village Gorny Dzuarikau.
The £40,000,000 plane was flying from the Mozdok air base during a scheduled training flight when it crashed into a deserted area.
The two pilots died in the crash thought to have been caused by a ‘technical malfunction’, the Ministry of Defence said, according to the state-owned Russian news agency TASS.
‘In the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, in a mountainous area, a Su-34 aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces crashed during a scheduled training flight,’ defence officials said.
‘The plane crashed in a deserted area. There is no destruction on the ground. The crew was killed.’
Su-34 is a Soviet-era medium-range fighter-bomber (Picture: Rostech/east2west news)
Villagers reported hearing a loud bang at night, with the sound picked up by local CCTV cameras.
Officials from the Russian Civil Aviation Administration arrived at the scene to investigate.
State media – including RIA Novosti and RBC – did not specify when the crash happened.
A Su-34, also called a Fullback, is a Soviet-origin Russian all-weather supersonic medium-range fighter-bomber aircraft.
Two other Su-34s were damaged over the weekend by a Ukrainian strike on the Akhtubinsk military airfield in the Astrakhan region of southern Russia.
The aircraft type was shot down for the first time since Putin’s war against Russia began in Spring by the Ukrainian Air Force.