April 1 (Reuters) - A Russian An-26 military transport plane crashed into a cliff in Crimea, killing 29 people on board, due to a possible technical malfunction, Russia's defence ministry said early on Wednesday, according to news agencies.
TASS news agency, quoting the ministry, said communication with the aircraft was lost at about 6 p.m. local time (1500 GMT) on Tuesday on a planned flight over Crimea. The peninsula, covered in sweeping mountains leading down to the coast of the Black Sea, was annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014.
"The defence ministry reported that a search team found the site of the catastrophe," TASS reported. "According to a report from the site, six crew members and 23 passengers on board were killed."
The ministry report did not say how many people were on board, but it made no mention of any survivors on the An-26, a light tactical military transport that has for decades been a mainstay that can carry cargo and up to 40 passengers over short and medium distances.
"There was no impact on the aircraft," TASS quoted the ministry as saying, implying that objects like missiles, drones and birds were not involved.
"The preliminary cause of the crash is a technical malfunction. A commission from the military is working at the site," it said.
Russia's defence ministry did not respond immediately to a request for comment outside normal business hours.
The An-26 has been in service since the late 1960s and has also been used by airlines to carry freight, but the model has been involved in a number of deadly crashes over the last decade.
A Ukrainian An-26 crashed during a technical flight in Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhzhia region in 2022, killing one person. Another aircraft crashed on a training flight in northeastern Ukraine in 2020, killing all but one of the 27 people on board.
Eight people, including five Russians, were killed when an An-26 crashed in South Sudan in 2020. Four of 10 people on board were killed when an An-26 crashed on landing in Ivory Coast in West Africa in 2017.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Jamie Freed)
