Ukrainian Warplane Crashes During Training Flight

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry says a Ukrainian Air Force Sukhoi Su-25 military plane crashed during a training flight near Zaporizhzhya on November 11, killing the 23-year-old pilot.

A Defense Ministry spokesman did not specify the cause of the crash.

But an Interfax correspondent reports that the plane crashed in a field close to a motorway near the village of Ternovka in the Volnyanka district of the Zaporishshya region after it clipped a power transmission line.

The Soviet-era SU-25 aircraft was designed during the 1970s to provide close air support for ground forces.

It has been used repeatedly by the Ukrainian Air Force against pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine since the conflict began there in 2014.

Several SU-215s used by Ukrainian government forces have been shot down by pro-Russian separatists in the conflict.

Pro-Russian separatists also have indirectly acknowledged their use of the warplane against Ukrainian forces during fighting near Debaltsevo in February 2015.

Based on reporting by Reuters, TASS, and Interfax