An aircraft transporting Russian military personnel crashed into a cliff in Crimea, a territory occupied by Russia, on March 31, killing all 29 people aboard, an event Russian Defense Ministry officials attribute to a technical malfunction.
The Soviet-era An-26 disappeared from radar around 6 p.m. local time during a routine flight across the Crimean Peninsula. After an extensive search, Russian military rescue teams located wreckage in a wooded, mountainous area of the Bakhchisarai district.
“The Defense Ministry reported that a search team found the site of the catastrophe,” the state news agency TASS reported. Six crew members and 23 passengers on board were killed.
Russian defense officials quickly ruled out an attack. A former Russian military pilot said on April 7 that early indications point to pilot error, alleging the crew began descending too soon and struck a rock about 30 kilometers from the airfield, with no evidence of mechanical failure or external impact. The Defense Ministry had previously excluded missiles, drones, or bird strikes. The formal inquiry is still underway.
Russia’s Investigative Committee confirmed the crash and opened a criminal probe into possible breaches of flight safety rules. The committee reported a slightly different count — seven crew members and 22 passengers — and officials have not reconciled the discrepancy. Lieutenant General Alexander Otroshchenko, commander of the Mixed Aviation Corps of the Northern Fleet, was among the dead, becoming the 14th Russian general killed since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Murmansk Governor Andrei Chibis confirmed Otroshchenko’s death on April 6 and said he had seen him “a couple of days before” the crash.
The crash occurred over Crimea, which Russia annexed unlawfully in 2014. The peninsula’s steep mountains descending to the Black Sea create hazardous conditions for flying and for rescue teams. Fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces has continued in the region since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than four years ago, with Ukrainian strikes often aimed at Russian military sites there.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly stated that Russia must withdraw from Crimea as part of any ceasefire. Last November, a U.S.-backed 28-point peace proposal indicated Kyiv would cede control of the peninsula, but talks remain stalled over key territorial issues.
The An-26 is a small tactical military transport developed by Ukraine’s Antonov company in the late 1960s. The turboprop is built primarily for military use and can carry cargo or up to about 40 passengers on short- and medium-range flights. Despite decades of service, the aging model has a troubling safety record.
In 2020, 26 people — including 19 cadets and seven crew members — died when a Ukrainian An-26 crashed near Kharkiv during a training flight; only one person survived. That year an An-26 also crashed in South Sudan, killing eight people, including five Russians. In July 2021, 28 people died when an An-26 went down in Russia’s Kamchatka region. Other An-26 accidents include a 2022 crash in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region that killed one person, and a 2017 landing accident in the Ivory Coast that killed four of the 10 aboard.
The March 31 crash adds to a rising tally of Russian military aviation accidents since Moscow sent forces into Ukraine in 2022. In December 2025, an An-22 cargo plane crashed in Russia’s Ivanovo region, killing seven crew members. In October 2025, a MiG-31 went down in the Lipetsk region. A Tu-22M3 bomber crashed in Irkutsk in April 2025.
In March 2024, a Russian military transport carrying 15 people crashed after takeoff from a western Russian airfield. One of the deadliest recent incidents was a Su-34 bomber that crashed into a residential area of Yeysk in October 2022, starting a major fire that killed 15 civilians on the ground.
These accidents raise serious concerns about the maintenance and readiness of Russia’s aging military aviation fleet as the country continues prolonged operations in Ukraine. Many aircraft date from the Soviet era and have remained in service well beyond their expected lifespans.
The difficult terrain in the Bakhchisarai district hampered recovery efforts, and officials have confirmed there were no survivors.
The reported loss of 29 military personnel and passengers marks one of the deadliest single incidents involving Russian military aircraft in recent years, underscoring the toll that worn equipment and sustained military operations have taken on Russia’s air forces.