MiG-29 crash in the Black Sea (1996)

On 31 October 1996, a MiG-29 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine fell into the Black Sea. This crash remains mysterious to this day, as neither the exact causes nor even the remains of the pilot were found.

Flight and crash

On 31 October 1996, a scheduled ferry flight was being carried out on a MiG-29 fighter from the "Kirovske" airfield to Vasylkiv with an intermediate landing in Kirovohrad (now Kropyvnytskyi). The pilot was the 39-year-old deputy squadron commander, Major Oleh Kulyk. This aircraft, like most aircraft, was inherited by Ukraine from the Soviet Union. The prototype made its very first flight in 1977, and the MiG-29 was accepted into service in 1983. This aircraft is a supersonic fighter and is capable of reaching speeds of over 2,400 km/h. After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine received presumably from 182 to 220 MiG-29 aircraft. The aircraft took off from Kirovske airfield, but just 20 minutes after takeoff a change of course by 180° was recorded on radar. The pilot did not respond to calls from the ground, and soon the aircraft descended from 10,600 m to 3,400 m. After that, the aircraft disappeared from radar over the Black Sea approximately 40 km from the coastline.

Over the following 15 days, wreckage of the aircraft was found in the Black Sea. On 7 November fishermen found the left aileron section, and on 15 November part of the right wing flap was found on the shore between the towns of Saky and Yevpatoria. The remains of Oleh Kulyk were not found, and he was declared dead.

After the crash

The exact causes of the crash were not established, nor was it established why the aircraft so unexpectedly changed course and so sharply lost 7,200 m of altitude, because the flight recorder was not found, nor was the rest of the aircraft wreckage. The First Deputy Commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, Viktor Strelnikov, named the destruction of the aircraft by a meteor shower as one of the possible causes of the crash.