24th June, 2022
A Russian military cargo plane crashed and caught fire while landing near the western city of Ryazan on Friday, killing four of the nine people on board.
The RIA news agency citing local authorities reported that five people were hospitalised with injuries.
The Interfax news agency separately quoted Russia’s defence ministry as saying the Ilyushin Il-76 military cargo plane had suffered an engine malfunction while on a training flight.
Reports said the ill-fated plane was en route from the Urals city of Orenburg to Belgorod on the Ukrainian border.
“Two bodies were retrieved from the burning aircraft,” the state-run TASS news agency quoted an unnamed emergency official as saying.
It later reported, citing unnamed sources, that the death toll has increased to four.
The news agencies did not indicate whether the Il-76 was transporting soldiers for deployment in Ukraine, where Russia has been waging a deadly four-month military campaign.