1 killed, 2 injured in transport plane crash in southern Ukraine
Smoke rises above a plant of Azovstal iron and steel plant during the Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, April 21, 2022. (Reuters Photo)


One person was killed and two others were injured after a Ukrainian AN-26 transport plane crashed Friday during a "technical flight" in southern Ukraine, according to the local authorities.

"An AN-26 aircraft, which according to preliminary information belonged to Ukraine, crashed today in the vicinity of Mikhailovka in the Zaporizhzhia region," the region's administration wrote in a statement on social media.

"The aircraft was performing a technical flight. It has been established that one person was killed and two more were injured."

The regional administration also said that according to preliminary and unconfirmed information, the plane hit an electricity pole and the engine caught fire. Crew numbers and the cause of the crash were being investigated.

The Soviet-designed Antonov aircraft, still widely used in military and civilian aviation across Russia and the former USSR, crash regularly.

In February, a Russian Antonov AN-26 transport carrying military equipment came down in the southern Voronezh region near Ukraine, killing all crew members on board.

Two dozen people including military cadets were killed in September 2020, when a Ukrainian AN-26 plane went down near Kharkiv in the east of the country.

In 2018, an AN-26 transport plane crashed when landing in Russia's Hemeimeem air base in Syria. All 39 servicemembers on board died.

The central Zaporizhzhia administration said Friday the plane may have hit electrical wires, setting the engines on fire.

It said rescue workers were on the scene.