While horrific scenes showed a fire devouring an apartment building in southern Russia, the Russian authorities announced today, Tuesday, that at least 13 people, including three children, were killed in the fall of the Sukhoi-34 fighter jet and its crash in an apartment building near the border with Ukraine.
The Ministry of Emergency Situations announced that “rescue teams have completed the search under the rubble, noting that 13 people were killed in total, while 19 others were injured.”
Fighter fuel set the building on fire
She also indicated that searches under the rubble had led to the recovery of an additional “ten bodies”, following an initial toll reported only three deaths.
The downing of the fighter set fire to the nine-storey apartment building, with a population of regarding 900 people.
Its fuel caused a huge fire in the building, which destroyed five of its floors.
The fighter was on a training flight when it was involved in the accident, while its pilots managed to escape following throwing themselves out of it, according to what the Ministry of Defense announced, attributing the cause to a technical malfunction caused by “a fire in one of the engines at takeoff.”
It is noteworthy that the disaster occurred yesterday evening in the city of Yeisk, which overlooks the Sea of Azov in the Krasnodar region near the Russian-Ukrainian border.
