Early Friday morning, December 16, in Ulan-Ude, a Mi-8 helicopter crashed during its approach and caught fire at Baikal airport. The incident, reported to TASS, involved a crew of three on board and no passengers were present at the time according to initial statements from officials on the scene.
Rescue teams and firefighting units arrived quickly at the site. At about 15:50 local time, the authorities confirmed that the Mi-8 was ignited while it was landing at Baikal Airport. Fire and rescue forces from the regional garrison were mobilized to contain the blaze in the second row of the airport complex, while the runway remained unaffected.
Initial assessments suggested the fire began on the aircraft engine, which ultimately led to the crash as the helicopter descended toward the airport surface. Officials noted that the machine was in the air during the landing sequence when the engine began to fail, and the burning helicopter descended to the ground, with fire consuming parts of the airframe shortly after impact.
Alexei Tsydenov, the head of the Buryatia region, commented that the most likely causes of the crash were either a technical malfunction or error by the pilot. The regional government added that the Mi-8 involved in the incident had not been in operation and was undergoing preparations for delivery. It had flown from Vostochny airport to Baikal airport prior to the accident.
Records indicate that the crashed helicopter was manufactured at the Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant and was intended for export. DEA News has reported on related regional accidents and developments to provide broader context on aviation safety concerns in the area. In a separate incident on October 17, a Su-34 fighter-bomber experienced an in-flight fire during a training sortie and crash-landed in a residential district in Yeysk, Krasnodar Territory. The pilots survived, with later official statements noting engine fire as a contributing factor.
Authorities later confirmed that 15 people lost their lives in the Yeysk incident, including three children. Regional officials reported that 43 people were injured in that event, among them nine children. The most recent updates indicated that the last injured child remained in serious condition at a hospital. This sequence of events has raised ongoing concerns about aviation safety and emergency response readiness in the region.
Another incident involved a Su-30 fighter jet that reportedly crashed into a two-story wooden house in Irkutsk during a test flight. Both pilots were killed in that crash, while local authorities stated that no residents were injured and that the surrounding emergency area, covering approximately 200 square meters, was quickly secured and mitigated by emergency services. The information surrounding these events served to underscore the need for rigorous maintenance protocols, robust crew training, and rapid, coordinated response efforts for emergency situations across multiple facilities in the region.