Crew killed as Russian military jet crashes on takeoff in Syria

World Tuesday 10/October/2017 17:42 PM
By: Times News Service
Crew killed as Russian military jet crashes on takeoff in Syria

Moscow: A Russian military jet crashed while taking off from Russia's Hmeymim air base in Syria on Tuesday in an incident that killed its two-man crew, Russia's Defence Ministry said, Russian news agencies reported. The Sukhoi-24 attack aircraft, codenamed Fencer by the NATO military alliance, was heading out on a combat mission, but its crew failed to eject after the plane veered off the runway, the ministry was cited as saying. A technical fault may have been to blame, the ministry said. Russia has used the Hmeymim base in Latakia Province to launch air strikes against opponents of President Bashar Al Assad since it first intervened in the Syrian conflict in September 2015. Russia lost two other planes - a Sukhoi-33 and a MiG-29 - off the coast of Syria last year in accidents involving its sole aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov.