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Warplane crashes in western Belarus, pilot killed

 

A Su-25 ground attack aircraft of the Belarusian Air and Air Defense Force crashed in the Hrodna region during a training flight on June 12, killing the only pilot on board.

The warplane belonged to the Force`s 116th Air Base located in western Belarus.

Lieutenant Colonel Mikalay Hrydnew was practicing piloting the warplane at low and extremely low altitudes when the accident happened, said the defense ministry.

According to the ministry, the aircraft went out of control at an altitude of 200 meters. The pilot was reportedly ordered to eject but, instead, stayed on board and managed to steer the warplane away from a village in the Navahrudak district. The plane crashed two kilometers north of the locality.

The defense ministry has established a commission to investigate the accident.

Five pilots of the Belarusian Air and Air Defense Force have been killed and four warplanes have been lost in accidents since mid-2009.

Two pilots, Alyaksandr Marfitski and Alyaksandr Zhurawlevich, were killed when their SU-27UBM-1 crashed during an aerial acrobatics display at an air show in Radom, Poland, on August 30, 2009.

Two MiG-29 fighter jets of the 927th Fighter Air Base collided in mid-air while performing complicated maneuvers during training flights in the Brest region in April 2010. One of the planes crashed to the ground after the pilot managed to steer the aircraft away from a populated area and ejected to safety. The other warplane safely landed at a military airfield.

In an accident in September 2010, a MiG-29 fighter jet of the 61st Fighter Air Base in Baranavichy, Brest region, crashed during a routine training flight. Squadron Commander Lieutenant Colonel Syarhey Kavalenka and Major Alyaksandr Zhyhayla were killed in the crash.

More than 60 people were killed in accidents involving military aircraft based in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and later Belarus between 1970 and 1997. There were no deadly accidents between June 1997 and August 2009. // BelaPAN