During a scheduled flight, one of the engines caught fire: an Il-76 crashed in the Ivanovo region

On the afternoon of Tuesday, March 12, an Il-76 military transport aircraft crashed in the Ivanovo region, with 15 people on board.

This was reported by the press service of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

“On March 12, at about 13:00 Moscow time, while taking off for a scheduled flight, an Il-76 military transport aircraft crashed in the Ivanovo region.

There were eight crew members and seven passengers on board,” the statement said.

According to the defense department, the cause of the crash was a fire in one of the engines.

To establish the causes of the plane crash, a commission of the Russian Aerospace Forces High Command was sent to the airfield.

According to RT's source, according to preliminary data, everyone on board died.

Governor Stanislav Voskresensky expressed condolences to the families of the deceased pilots of the Il-76 crew and instructed to provide the necessary assistance.

According to him, no settlements in the region were damaged during the crash.

The previous emergency with an aircraft of this type was an incident that occurred on June 24, 2022.

Then the Il-76 military transport aircraft, during a training flight without cargo, landed on the ground due to an identified engine malfunction.

Upon contact with the ground, the plane partially collapsed.

Four people were killed in the crash and five more were injured.

Since the beginning of 2024, this is the second plane crash involving an Il-76.

On the morning of January 24, troops of the Kyiv regime shot down a Russian military transport aircraft flying on the route Chkalovsky airfield - Belgorod to transport Ukrainian military personnel for the purpose of exchange.

As a result of the terrorist attack, 65 captured Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers, six crew members and three Russian servicemen accompanying them were killed.

After the incident, the editor-in-chief of RT and MIA Rossiya Segodnya, Margarita Simonyan, published a list of Ukrainian prisoners of war who were on board the crashed Il-76.

The Investigative Committee of Russia established that the anti-aircraft missile weapons from which the strike was carried out were located in the village of Liptsy, Kharkov region.

The plane was shot down by MIM-104A anti-aircraft guided missiles fired from the American Patriot system.

Later, RIA Novosti, citing a source familiar with the situation, reported that the attack on board the Il-76 was carried out under pressure from British advisers.

In turn, TASS, citing law enforcement agencies, wrote that the ambush staged by the Ukrainian Armed Forces against the Il-76 with Ukrainian prisoners of war on board was planned in advance: the Patriot air defense system was placed in the position area and stood with the radar turned off, not detecting itself.

“To demonstrate to Western curators at least some success, the Zelensky regime is carrying out terrorist acts against Russian civilians.

At the same time, the Kyiv authorities do not hesitate to destroy their own citizens.

This speaks to the cynical nature of Kyiv’s actions, which is ready to commit any crimes in order to achieve selfish goals,” explained Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

On February 28, the Chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, said that investigators were continuing to work to identify all Ukrainian commanders involved in the terrorist attack.

On March 1, Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova noted that Russia has at its disposal all the DNA samples necessary to identify the identities of those killed in the crash of the Il-76 military aircraft.

According to her, the Kiev regime clarified with Moscow the possibility of transferring the bodies of the dead.

The authorities of the Orenburg region published a list of crew members by name: ship commander Bezzubkin, assistant ship commander Chmirev, navigator Vysokin, flight engineer Piluev, flight engineer Zhitenev, flight radio operator Sablinsky.

All the dead served in the Orenburg military transport regiment.

RT spoke with the relatives of some of the deceased Russian military pilots who were in the crashed Il-76 and learned the details of their biographies.

Also on russian.rt.com “They were for each other”: what is known about the dead crew members of the downed Il-76 APU