RT quoted information from the Russian Ministry of Defense as saying that a Russian An-26 military transport plane crashed in Crimea on the evening of March 31 (local time), killing all 29 people on board.
According to the Ministry of Defense, contact with the plane was lost at about 6 pm on the same day on a "regular flight" over the strategic Black Sea peninsula.
The Ministry of Defense said "there were no signs of external impact on the plane", implying that the plane was not shot down by Ukraine. TASS news agency quoted a source as saying that the plane crashed into a mountain.
RIA Novosti reported that preliminary data shows that the plane may have encountered a technical problem.
An-26 is a twin-engine turboprop aircraft capable of transporting up to 40 soldiers and designed to deploy paratroopers and evacuate injured people.
