At least 22 passengers, including Army cadets, have passed away in a plane crash after an aircraft fell from the sky and burst into flames.
The tragic incident happened near the city of Kharkiv in Ukraine where an Antonov-26 airplane carrying 27 people crashed, resulting in at least 22 fatalities.
According to the emergency ministry officials, the incident also resulted in two passengers getting severely injured, whereas the officials are still looking for three missing passengers as of the time of this writing.
While the cause of the crash is still being determined, early reports suggest that the incident is likely not connected to the on-going conflict in the eastern parts of the country.
As the officials have confirmed, the military plane took off from the Chuhuiv airport which is located some 60 miles from the battle line where the Ukrainian forces are clashing with pro-Russian rebels.
“It’s a shock. At the moment it’s impossible to establish the cause,” Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko said in a statement to AFP.
As Oleksiy Kucher, the governor of Kharkiv Oblast, a province located in eastern Ukraine, allegedly suggested, preliminary information indicates that a pilot had reported engine failure moments prior to the crash.
According to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, however, the governor suggested that the engine failure shouldn’t result in a critical situation.
Following the plane crash, one of the witnesses told Reuters that they had seen a passenger running around the wreckage engulfed in planes.
“Another car stopped behind us. We took a fire extinguisher and ran with another driver to help him,” the eyewitness reportedly said.
The investigation is undergoing.
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