(SeaPRwire) –   Six crew members and 23 passengers have been killed in a Russian military plane crash in annexed Crimea, Russian news agencies cited the Defense Ministry as reporting in the early hours of Wednesday.

According to the reports, the An-26 military transport plane was conducting a scheduled flight over the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Military authorities lost contact with the aircraft at around 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

Sources present at the scene told state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti that the Soviet-designed military transport turboprop plane crashed into a cliff.

Russia’s Investigative Committee stated that a total of seven crew members and 23 passengers were on board the aircraft. Official statements did not immediately make clear whether one crew member had survived the crash.

The Investigative Committee noted that it has launched a criminal investigation related to potential flight regulation violations, and search efforts are ongoing in a mountainous, forested area in the Bakhchisarai district.

The Interfax news agency quoted the Defense Ministry as saying that a suspected technical malfunction may have led to the crash, and that there was no “damaging interference” targeting the aircraft.

Accidents involving Russian military planes have occurred frequently since the Kremlin deployed troops into Ukraine.

An An-22 military transport plane crashed in Russia’s Ivanovo region in December, leaving seven crew members dead. A MiG-31 fighter jet crashed in the Lipetsk region in October, while a Tu-22M3 bomber went down in the Siberian region of Irkutsk in April 2025.

In October 2022, a Su-34 bomber crashed into a residential area of Yeysk, a Russian city situated on the Azov Sea, igniting a large-scale fire and killing 15 people.