78 die in Ukraine airshow disaster
The tragedy occurred in the town of Sknyliv, near Lviv in western Ukraine, when a low-flying Russian-made Sukhoi Su-27 jet plunged into spectator stands and exploded in flames, sending debris sailing into thousands, the Ukrainian emergencies ministry said.
Both pilots ejected to safety.
Many of the injured were hospitalized in critical condition with burns, fractures and head injuries, Interfax news agency reported. They included a number of children.
The unarmed twin-seater, twin-engined plane was performing an aerobatic manoeuvre involving a low pass, a defence ministry spokesman said.
“During a turn, the machine dipped its nose and started to lose altitude,” a witness said: “Two or three seconds later it landed on the grass and exploded only a few yards from spectators who were hit by fragments.”
A ministry official said earlier the fighter had accidentally touched a plane stationed on the ground while flying low.
Bodies, the injured and shattered bits of aircraft lay scattered around the airfield as blood-covered visitors stumbled from the scene in a state of shock.
“We started to run when we saw the plane falling,” said one spectator: “If we hadn’t we’d be among the dead now.”
His nine-year-old daughter, still mute with terror, clutched her father as he held her in his arms.
No information had been made public officially on the causes of the accident by the end of the afternoon, although the state attorney’s office opened an enquiry.
Unofficially, people were talking of an engine problem being the cause.
“The pilots were two very experienced colonels,” a Ukrainian defence ministry spokesman said. “It’s very difficult to explain how it happened.”
The government set up an enquiry body and announced that a distress fund of 10 million hryvnias (1.9 million dollars) would be made available to support families afflicted by the tragedy.
It was the first accident of its kind since Ukraine became independent in 1991. A defence ministry spokesman said: “There have been crashes at airshows but never yet with victims among the spectators.”
Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union until 1991.
An emergencies ministries official earlier told Interfax news agency that the jet clipped another aircraft during a manoeuvre and crashed to the ground.
He said the two pilots ejected from the plane and were alive but did not say whether they suffered injuries.
The pilots, who were not identified, were experienced flyers who had already performed for Ukraine at an international air show in Le Bourget, outside Paris.
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma broke off his vacation in Crimea to fly to the crash site.
His Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, sent his condolences, said a Kremlin spokesman cited by Interfax.
Seconds after the crash images taken on a video camera showed injured people covered in blood and screaming for help, surrounded by lifeless bodies littering the tarmac.
It was the deadliest such accident in 14 years, following the death of 70 people at a 1988 air show on a US military base in Ramstein, then West Germany, when three planes collided.
In another major air show crash, 10 people were killed and 54 were injured in Ostende, Belgium, when a Jordanian trick plane burrowed into a Red Cross stand.
The Su-27, which went into service in 1984, is the precursor to a generation of Su-27UB fighter jets rolled out the following year. It weighs 16 tons when empty, 25 tons when fully loaded and can reach speeds of up to 2,500 kilometres per hour.
The crash is the third major disaster in Ukraine this month following two accidents in southeastern mines.
A July 7 fire in a mine in the Donetsk region left 35 dead. Two weeks later, on July 21, six others were killed in a methane blast in a Dniepropetrovsk region mine.—AFP