Russian military plane catches fire at air base in Crimea, officials say
A large blaze broke out at a Russian military airfield on the occupied Crimean Peninsula after a landing plane skidded off the runway and caught fire, a Russian official and state media reported on Saturday.
The local governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, said that “a partial explosion of ammunition” occurred after the plane went off the runway at the air base in the village of Belbek.
The pilot safely evacuated, and firefighters managed to extinguish the blaze, Razvozhaev wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Videos showing a massive black cloud of smoke billowing into the sky as a backdrop to a Crimean beach spread quickly on social media.
There was nothing to immediately suggest that Ukrainian forces or guerillas had anything to do with the explosion.
In August, a series of large explosions destroyed at least eight warplanes and several buildings at the Saki air base, on Crimea’s western Black Sea coast.
Ukrainian officials said the blasts were an attack carried out by its forces with the help of partisans, but the Russian authorities claimed munitions stored at the base had caught fire.