2020 Chuhuiv An-26 crash

On 25 September 2020, an An-26Sh military transport plane crashed during a training flight in Chuhuiv, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine. Of the 27 people on board, one survived. The aircraft was destroyed. The aircraft had tail number 76 and belonged to the 203rd Training Aviation Brigade (A4104 military unit).

According to an official government investigation both pilot errors and technical malfunctions of the aircraft caused the crash.

History of the flight

From 18:50 25 September 2020, there were flights on the An-26Sh training of flying and navigating cadets of the Ivan Kozhedub National Air Force University to gain skills in flying and piloting aircraft. The flights went according to plan and were to last until 10:50 pm. In the time before the crash, the plane had made six successful take-offs and five successful landings.

The crew consisted of 7 people. The crew was commanded by Bohdan Kyshenia, an instructor pilot, a second-class pilot who had flown more than 700 hours. The cadets took turns sitting in the right chair to gain piloting skills.

According to official data, the following course of events was previously established:

At 20:35 the plane took off from Chuhuiv Air Base and started flying according to the program.

At 20:38 the crew noticed a pressure drop in the left engine torque sensor, which was reported to the air traffic controller, after which it was instructed to land.

At 20:40 the crew made a request to land, but because another plane was boarding at that time, the crew received permission to land a minute after the request.

At 20:43 the aircraft passed the aerodrome's long-range radio beacon, prepared flaps and landing gear, began descent, and reported readiness for landing.

At 20:45 during the approach the plane lost altitude and collided with the ground at a distance of about 1500 m from the air base runway. After that, the plane fuselage caught fire.

The plane crashed near the M03 Kyiv-Kharkiv-Dovzhansky highway. The fire, which broke out after the plane crash, was extinguished at 9:55 pm by the State Emergency Service brigades and other the Ministry of Internal Affairs units that arrived on the site. During the crash, the plane nearly hit one of the cars traveling on the highway. Drivers and passengers called rescuers to the crash site and provided first aid to the people who survived the crash: one of them was on fire and extinguished with a fire extinguisher, and the other had a broken head and a cut on his leg, but he was conscious and could speak. Eyewitnesses also reported that the cadets jumped without parachutes.

There were 27 people on board – 20 cadets of the Ivan Kozhedub National Air Force University and seven officers. One cadet wasn't allowed to board the flight at the last moment. Twenty-five bodies were found at the crash site. Two cadets survived the accident, but one of them, having received burns to 90% of his body, died on 26 September in an ambulance hospital in Kharkiv. A total of 26 people died in the plane crash – 19 cadets and seven crew members. The bodies of the dead were badly burned and mutilated, and a DNA examination was required to identify them, which took 2–3 weeks.

One cadet survived and is in the Military Medical Clinical Center of the Northern Region "with numerous bruises and concussions.". It was later reported that his condition was stable, he had injured his leg and received multiple bruises, but he will soon be discharged from the hospital. He later said that everything happened quickly, "like in a computer game," and after he woke up, he helped put out the person who was on fire.

Throughout the 25 September evening, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, and the Kharkiv Oblast State Administration called different numbers of people on board the plane at the crash time.

The plane wreckage is located at 533 - 534 km mark of the M03 Kyiv-Kharkiv-Dovzhansky highway, which complicates the vehicles movement that passes through one free lane.

There are no certainties yet as to what caused the plane crash. The Geneva-based Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives suggested that since 2017, at least 10 Antonov An-26 aircraft are said to have crashed.

According to the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Andriy Taran, the plane was in good condition, had enough flight resources, but for unknown reasons caught the wing on the ground. According to preliminary estimates, the failure of one of the engine sensors had been considered, but the engine itself did not appear to have failed. At the same time, the mother of the pilot, Ashraf Msuia, told journalists that her son mentioned that the aircraft itself was not in good shape at all, and that the aircraft's engines were constantly failing.