A Russian Antonov An-26 military transport aircraft crashed into a cliff in the Bakhchisarai district of Crimea on March 31, killing all 29 people on board, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday, citing a suspected technical malfunction.
Contact with the An-26, a Soviet-designed light tactical turboprop capable of carrying up to 40 passengers over short and medium ranges, was lost at approximately 6 p.m. Moscow time during a scheduled flight over the peninsula, the Defense Ministry said. A search and rescue team located the wreckage on a cliff face roughly 16 miles east of Sevastopol.
“According to a report from the site, six crew members and 23 passengers on board were killed,” the Defense Ministry said. Russia’s Investigative Committee, the country’s top criminal investigative body, put the crew count at seven, with 22 passengers, for the same flight. The two agencies have not reconciled the difference.
Occupied Crimea ❗
✈️❌ During the crash of a russian military transport aircraft An-26 in occupied Crimea, servicemen of the Northern Fleet were killed! According to the Investigative Committee, the plane crashed in the vicinity of the village of Kuibyshevo in the Bakhchysaray… https://t.co/gQvJ4spY9h pic.twitter.com/rZYZUWSIAz— LX (@LXSummer1) April 1, 2026
The Defense Ministry said a technical commission was working at the crash site. “The preliminary cause of the crash is a technical malfunction,” the ministry stated, adding there was “no damaging interference” with the aircraft, ruling out hostile fire, drone strike, or bird strike.
An An-26 military transport aircraft crashed while flying over Crimea, killing six crew members and 23 passengers. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed reports from Russian military correspondents.
According to a source at the crash site, the Russian propaganda agency TASS… pic.twitter.com/a6kI4pdSAN
— GMan | GMan’s Chronicle (@FAB87F) April 1, 2026
The Investigative Committee announced a criminal probe into possible flight safety violations.
The crash comes after at least eight separate Russian military aviation incidents recorded between December 29, 2025, and late March 2026, according to Militarnyi, a Ukrainian defense outlet that tracks Russian military losses. Non-combat incidents during the same period included a Su-34 strike fighter and several Mi-8 transport helicopters damaged in technical failures.
The An-26 has been in Russian military service since the late 1960s. A separate An-26 operated by Russian forces, registration RF-46873, was destroyed by a Ukrainian drone while taxiing at Kacha Naval Air Station in Crimea on December 11, 2025, according to the Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives.
