Anand A Tu-22M3 strategic bomber crashed in Russia’s southern Stavropol region on Friday morning, the Interfax news agency cited Russia’s defence ministry as saying.
Russian authorities later confirmed that a crew member was killed in the crash and added that it was searching for a fourth pilot. “To my deep regret, the third crew member has been killed. The search for the fourth pilot is continuing,” Stavropol region governor Vladimir Vladimirov said.
Two other crew members have been hospitalised.
The ministry said that the bomber’s four pilots had ejected, and three of them have been rescued while the search for the fourth one continued.
It said the crash appeared to have been caused by a technical malfunction.
Between 2020 and 2024 so far, a total of 17 military or civilian airplanes have crashed in Russia. While most of them were attributed to the bad weather, authorities have struggled to come up with reliable explanations for a few.
Following aircraft have crashed in Russia between 2020 and 2024. They are:
Volga-Dnepr Airlines Flight 4066 (2020), Kemerovo parachute Let L-410UVP-E crash (2021), Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Air Flight 251 (2021), Siberian Light Aviation Flight 42 (2021), Siberian Light Aviation Flight 51 (2021), Menzelinsk parachute Let L-410UVP-E crash (2021), Grodno Aviakompania Flight 1252 (2021), Russian Aerospace Forces Antonov An-26 crash (2022), Russian Air Force Ilyushin Il-76 crash (2022), Yeysk military aircraft crash (2022), Irkutsk military aircraft crash (2022), Belgorod accidental bombing (2023), Bryansk Oblast military aircraft crashes (2023), Wagner Group plane crash (2023), Ural Airlines Flight 1383 (2023), Korochansky Ilyushin Il-76 crash (2024), Ivanovo Ilyushin Il-76 crash (2024)
