Cadets among 22 dead in Ukraine military plane crash

KIEV: At least 22 people including military cadets were killed and two others seriously injured Friday when a Ukranian air force plane crashed near Kharkiv in the east of the country, the interior ministry said.

“Twenty-two people died,” Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko told AFP, adding that “the search for two other people is continuing.”

The transport plane was carrying a total of 28 passengers when it crashed, including 21 military students and seven crew, he said.

“It’s a shock,” he added. “At the moment it’s impossible to establish the cause” of the crash.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would travel to the region on Saturday.

“We are urgently creating a commission to investigate all the circumstances and causes of the tragedy,” he wrote on Facebook.

The Antonov-26 transport aircraft crashed at around 8:50 p.m. local time (17:50 GMT), two kilometers (1 mile) from the Chuhuiv military air base, the emergency services said.

The plane caught fire after the crash and was extingushed after one hour.

The town of Chuhuiv is around 30 kilometers southeast of Kharkiv and 100 kilometers west of the front line with the pro-Russian separatists.