Russian military cargo plane crashes after catching fire with 15 on board

A Russian military cargo plane crashed shortly after take-off in the country’s western Ivanovo region, the defence ministry in Moscow has said.

The Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft crashed at about 1pm Moscow time on Tuesday after one of its engines caught fire, the Russian Tass news agency reported, citing the country’s ministry of defence.

There were eight crew members and seven passengers on board at the time of the crash north-east of the Russian capital, the ministry said. It did not say if there were any survivors.

An anonymous emergency service official told Tass: “According to preliminary data, everyone on board died.” The source added that a search was underway for flight recorders.

The plane was heading to the Severny airfield near the city of Ivanovo when it crashed in a forest near the village of Podtalitsy, about six miles from the air base, according to the Russian independent news website Meduza.

A witness told Tass that the plane crashed near Bogorodskoye cemetery, east of Severny, saying: “It fell and exploded.”

Unverified videos on social media appeared to show a plane with one engine on fire as it descended towards the ground.

In January, a Il-76 military transport plane crashed in the Belgorod region near the Ukrainian border. Russia blamed Ukraine for shooting down the plane, and claimed all those on board, including 64 Ukrainian prisoners of war, were killed. Ukraine did not confirm or deny Kyiv’s involvement in the plane crash.

This story is being updated