29 Dead as Russia Military Plane Crashes Over Crimea
The ministry disclosed that the aircraft was carrying 23 passengers and six crew members at the time of the crash.
"During a scheduled flight over the Crimean peninsula on March 31 at around 6:00 PM Moscow time (1500GMT), communication with the An-26 military transport aircraft was lost," the ministry said in an official statement.
Search and rescue teams subsequently located the wreckage of the An-26 transport plane. The ministry confirmed there were no survivors.
A formal investigation commission has been deployed to the crash site. Early findings have ruled out any sign of external interference with the aircraft, with authorities pointing to a technical fault as the most likely cause.
"No evidence of external impact on the aircraft has been found, and the preliminary cause of the incident is a technical malfunction," the ministry noted.
The An-26 is a Soviet-era twin-turboprop military transport aircraft that has been in service with Russian armed forces for decades. Wednesday's crash marks one of the deadliest recorded losses of a Russian military aircraft in recent months, as investigators work to determine the precise sequence of events that brought the plane down.
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