A MiG-29 fighter jet crashed during a training flight on the territory of the Ashuluk training ground in the Astrakhan region. This was reported in the press service of the Southern Military District, RIA Novosti reports .
The plane crashed in a deserted place during a scheduled flight. As a result of the crash, the MiG-29 pilot was killed. It is noted that the flight was carried out without ammunition.
Other details of the incident are currently unknown. A commission of the Main Command of the Aerospace Forces has been sent to the crash site, which will have to determine the reason why the plane crashed.
The cause of the crash could be weather conditions
Honored Military pilot of Russia Vladimir Popov among the possible causes of the crash of the fighter pointed to difficult weather conditions that could arise due to the proximity of the mountains of Dagestan and the Caspian Sea. In particular, he did not rule out getting the plane into a thundercloud.
"There may be a collision with an obstacle, artificial or natural, which was not noticed during the descent," he suggested. In addition, the loss of altitude control during maneuvers, the distraction of the pilot from the instrument flight, as well as a possible failure of equipment could lead to the crash, Popov believes.
The pilot drew attention to the fact that the MiG-29SMT is not difficult in flight, but it has quite difficult "aerobatics". Therefore, only a professional should manage such an aircraft, he added.
The crash of the MiG-29 was the second plane crash in two days
The day before the crash of the fighter during a training flight in the Moscow [...] region, an Il-112B crashed. The crew commander of the prototype of the newest Russian military transport aircraft was a test pilot, Hero of Russia Nikolai Kuimov. In addition to him, test pilot Dmitry Komarov and test flight engineer Nikolai Khludeev were on board the aircraft. A TASS source in the emergency services said that the plane's right engine caught fire, after which it " tilted to the right side, began to lose speed, turned over and fell."
According to a TASS source in law enforcement agencies, the crash could have occurred due to a technical malfunction of the aircraft or a pilot error. At the same time, the source Interfax, in turn, explained that the crew could have made a mistake during landing due to fatigue. Also, a version with a failure of equipment is not excluded, since the Il-112B as a prototype was tested under excessive loads, he noted.
The aircraft was supposed to take part in the VII International Military-Technical Forum "Army-2021". Serial production of the IL-112 is one of the priority tasks of the state program of rearmament of the Armed Forces of Russia. The IL-112, capable of taking up to 44 passengers or up to five tons of cargo, is being created to replace the Ukrainian An-24 and An-26.
Marina Sovina
