CNN
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At least four people were killed and 25 injured when a Russian SU-34 fighter jet crashed into a residential building in the western city of Yeysk during a training flight on Monday. Russian State media and authorities.
The incident occurred due to an engine fire, RIA Novosti reported, citing Russia’s Defense Ministry.
“According to the reports of the evacuated pilots, the cause of the plane crash was that one of the engines ignited during take-off. At the crash site of the Su-34 in the yard of a residential building, the plane’s fuel caught fire,” the ministry said in a statement to RIA.
The conditions of the evacuated pilots are unclear.
Yeysk is a port city on the shores of the Sea of Azov and is separated from occupied Russian territory to the south. Ukraine across a narrow sea.
Images and videos of the aftermath of the crash showed billows of smoke and flames in the residential area. A building believed to be housing hundreds of people was later engulfed in flames, officials said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin The Kremlin said in a statement that Putin had received reports on the situation from ministers and the head of the region, telling officials to provide all necessary assistance to the victims of the crash.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Krasnodar Krai Region and the Military Prosecutor’s Office of the Southern Military District, authorities have launched an investigation into the incident.
The fire, which spread to more than a dozen apartments in the multi-storey building, was later brought under control, local officials said.
“The remains of the plane have been extinguished. Evacuation of residents of nearby homes has been called off. The fire is under control,” Veniamin Kondratiev, head of the Krasnodar Krai region, said on his Telegram channel, citing a statement from the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
About 100 people were evacuated from the building, local government security services told TASS.
The area of the fire caused by the accident was 2,000 square meters wide, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry told RIA.
The head of the affected district in Yeysk, Roman Publik, said that residents of the nine-story building that caught fire will be given all the necessary support.
Earlier on Monday, an eyewitness told Russian state media DASS about the chaos after the crash: “A plane crashed in our city … ambulances and firefighters are coming from all over the city, helicopters are in the air,” the eyewitness said.
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