Su-30 fighter jet accidentally shot down during military exercises

Details about the crash of the Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jet near the city of Tver on September 22 continue to emerge. According to Telegram-channel 112, Su-35 and Su-30 fighters were carrying out a scheduled training flight, when the incident occurred.

When practicing an air combat mission, the pilots of the Su-35 detected the target, but instead of the photo attack, they fired a real shot at the Su-30.

The pilots of the damaged fighter jet ejected and were not injured.

The military are looking into the causes of the incident to find out how the real attack occurred and why the weapons of the aircraft were activated. They do not exclude a spontaneous shot or an error of ground technical services, which for some reason did not turn off the onboard arms systems  prior to the flight.

A source at emergency services of the Tver region later confirmed to TASS news agency that the Su-30 fighter jet crashed as a result of the accidental attack that took place during the military exercise.

The ejected pilots were said to be in satisfactory condition. The Su-30 crashed near the village of Dornikovo of the Tver region; there was no destruction or casualties on the ground. To establish the causes and circumstances of the incident, a commission from the Western Military District was sent to the scene of the accident.

Su-30 is a 4 ++ generation fighter. It is designed to destroy air targets at different times of the day and in different meteorological conditions, as well as against the background of the earth during the use of active and passive jamming devices.

The first serial Su-30 took off on April 14, 1992. According to data from open sources, in the entire history of operation, at least 18 aircraft of the Su-30 family were lost, an as many as 12 people were killed in those air crashes.

• On February 28, 2012, a Su-30 crashed during a test flight, 130 kilometers to the northeast of Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Both pilots ejected, one of them suffered minor injuries.
• On July 26, 2006,  a Su-30 aircraft crashed in Zhukovsky near Moscow. The incident occurred during tests at the Gromov Flight Testing Institute. The plane crashed on the airfield. No one was hurt, there was no destruction on the ground either.
• On July 22, 2003, a Su-30 aircraft crashed during takeoff at the naval aviation airfield in southern Russia. The Ministry of Defense then said that the incident occurred solely because of the fault of the pilot, who mistakenly pressed the wrong switch after landing, while taxiing the aircraft. The landing gear of the fighter jet retracted, and the aircraft fell on its belly. No one was hurt, the plane suffered minor damage.