An Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane crashed in Russia on Tuesday, after one of its engines failed during take-off, the Defense Ministry has reported.
The aircraft had 15 people on board, including eight crew members and seven passengers, the statement said. The incident happened in Ivanovo Region, some 250km east of the capital of Moscow.
A video circulating online that was apparently filmed by an eyewitness shows the aircraft at low altitude with flames engulfing one of its four turbofan engines.
According to media reports, the plane’s pilot was trying to return to the Ivanovo Severny air base but was unable to do so. He apparently diverted the doomed aircraft away from a village, crashing it near a cemetery.
The Il-76 is a heavy transport plane that made its maiden flight back in 1971 and entered military service three years later. Some 950 aircraft of this type had been produced by 2015, according to public data. Its payload capacity is 47 tons, enough to airlift 140 regular paratroopers with gear over a distance of up to 4,200km.