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Russia's Missing Warplanes Found Crashed in Chechen Mountain
The debris of the two Russian Su-25 attack planes missing Thursday in Chechnya was found Friday by Russian reconnaissance planes in a southern mountain of the republic, according to Russian media.
The fragments of one missing plane were spotted around noon in a 2,600 meter-high mountain in south Chechnya and the pilot was most likely to have died, Russian Air force Deputy Commander Vladimir Mikhailov told Itar-Tass news agency Friday.
The plane was found at the altitude of over 2,000 meters in the highlands. Debris of the second Russian attack aircraft was discovered nearby later from the air and its pilot is apparently dead, Mikhailov said.
Both aircraft disappeared on Thursday while carrying out a sortie at an altitude of 1,500 meters. They "apparently did not manage to reach the necessary altitude and crashed into the mountain," he said.
Heavy cloud and poor visibility prevented an effective air search. "A rescue helicopter is unable to land at the scene, and so rescuers will be landed in other place and get to this area on foot," he said.
In his words, the main command of the Russian airforce refutes the assertions that the two Su-25 aircraft were shot down by Chechen rebels. According to the situation at the wreckage site, it's obvious that the planes hit the mountain due to complicated terrain and weather conditions.
Bad weather and dense clouds may have been among the main causes of the crash, Mikhailov said. Several seconds before the crash, leading pilot Yuri Yakimenko radioed to the command post in town of Khankala that clouds were indistinguishable from mountains so he was picking up altitude.
This phrase, Mikhailov said, is one of the indications that it was bad weather and dense clouds that prevented the pilots from seeing that the steeply rising mountain.
Russian military experts say that it is impossible for the Chechen militants to shoot down two Su-25 attack planes at the same time because they have no such surface-to-air missile systems.
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