Six crew members and 23 passengers on board the An-26, with which contact was lost over Crimea, have died, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the defense ministry said that contact was lost with the An-26 military transport aircraft, which was on a scheduled flight over the Crimean Peninsula.
“A search and rescue team has located the crash site of the An-26. According to reports from the scene, six crew members and the 23 passengers on board have died,” the ministry said in a statement.
The preliminary cause of the crash is a technical malfunction.
The aircraft crashed into a cliff, a source told Sputnik.
