Soldier killed, 5 injured in Russian crash landing

A Russian serviceman was killed and five others injured today when their transport plane crash landed and caught fire after a training flight near the central city of Saratov, authorities said.

Russia's defence ministry said the incident, which took place at around 6:00 am (0300 GMT), could have been caused by failure of one of the engines of the plane, an Antonov AN-26.

There were six people onboard the aircraft when it made a hard landing at Saratov's Balashov aerodrome, the defence ministry said in a statement quoted by Interfax news agency.

The governor of the Saratov region said in a statement that the servicemen were taking part in a training flight.
 

Soviet-designed AN-26 transport planes are widely used in Russia and the developing world. In 2013, nine died when an AN-26 plane crashed into a military warehouse complex in Siberia.