A Russian military plane crashed in the country’s northern Murmansk region on Wednesday, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing the Defense Ministry.
The Mikoyan MiG-31 supersonic aircraft crashed in an uninhabited area during a training exercise and both pilots safely ejected from the aircraft, according to officials.
The incident happened near the town of Monchegorsk located some 130 kilometers south of the regional capital Murmansk, according to eyewitness reports.
Neither the ministry nor local authorities reported any civilian casualties or damage to infrastructure as a result of the crash.
The cause of the crash has not yet been determined.
“We have a military airfield near the city, the plane was flying from there. Scheduled exercises, we are used to such sounds. But this time the sound was much louder, the windowpane trembled,” a local resident told the Ostorozhno, Novosti news channel on Telegram.
Eyewitness footage published to social media shows the plane engulfed in flames as it teeters toward the ground.
The crash marks at least the fourth such incident on Russian territory since the invasion of Ukraine began a year ago.
A Russian pilot was killed in February when a military plane crashed in the southern region of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine.
In October last year, at least 15 civilians were killed when a Russian supersonic Su-34 strike aircraft crashed into an apartment block in the southern Russian port town of Yeysk, though both pilots ejected from the aircraft and survived the incident.
