Last Monday, a military plane crashed into a residential building in southern Russia. Several people die as a result. Now a similar incident is happening in Siberia.
Two pilots died when a Russian warplane crashed in a residential area of the Siberian city of Irkutsk. "The Su-30 aircraft crashed during a test flight," the civil defense said, according to the Interfax news agency. The machine crashed in a residential area, but according to initial information from the authorities, there are no other victims on the ground.
The fire has now been extinguished and the clean-up work is continuing. The amount of property damage is still being determined. In the affected residential area there are mainly small-storey private houses. The public prosecutor's office has launched investigations into breaches of safety regulations. The aircraft is a modernized variant of the Su-30, the Su-30SM multi-role fighter, which only had its maiden flight in 2012.
It is the second such incident in a week. On Monday, a Sukhoi Su-34 fighter jet crashed into a block of flats in the southern Russian city of Yeysk near Ukraine. At least 15 people were killed. Some residents of the house that caught fire died when they jumped from the upper floors to escape from the flames.
According to the Ministry of Defense, the machine crashed due to a technical defect and an engine is said to have caught fire. The pilots were able to save themselves. According to the information, the machine was on a training flight and had no ammunition on board.
The spokeswoman for the imprisoned Kremlin opponent Alexey Navalny, Kira Jarmysch, said after the accident in Yeysk that Russian fighter jets were now destroying houses not only in Ukraine, but also at home. "None of this would have happened if Putin hadn't started this war."
