A Russian fighter jet has crashed into a residential building in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, the second incident this week in which a fighter jet entered an urban area.
Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev said no residents were injured but the two crew members were killed in Sunday’s blast.
The Su-30 fighter jet crashed during a training flight into a two-storey wooden building, causing a fire, the local branch of the Russian Emergencies Ministry said.
Surveillance camera footage circulating on Russian social media showed the supersonic fighter hurtling down in a near-vertical dive.
Other videos showed firefighters struggling to put out the blaze that had engulfed the building.
The incident comes less than a week after another Russian warplane crashed near an apartment building in the Sea of Azov port in Yeysk and exploded into a giant ball of fire , killing 15 people and injuring 19 others.
Military experts say the number of crashes rose as the number of Russian military flights soared during the fighting, with Sunday’s incident marking the 11th reported plane crash outside of the fighting since Moscow again invaded Ukraine in February.
Irkutsk, a major industrial center of over 600,000 people in eastern Siberia, is home to an aircraft factory producing the Su-30 fighter jets.
The Su-30 is a two-seat supersonic twin-engine fighter that has been a key part of the Russian Air Force and has also been used by India and other countries.
