Russian sources state that Lieutenant General Alexander Otroshchenko may have died when the An-26 crashed in Crimea. However, Moscow did not confirm the death of the commander of the Northern Fleet.
Lieutenant General Alexander Otroshchenko is probably one of the victims of the An-26 military transport plane crash in the annexed Crimea, the Russian BBC service reported, citing its sources. However, there is still no official confirmation of the death of a high-ranking officer, writes TASR according to the Russian website Verstka.
- An An-26 military plane crashed in Crimea with 29 victims.
- Lieutenant General Alexander Otroshchenko is probably among the victims.
- There is no official confirmation of his death yet.
- The crash could have been caused by a technical malfunction of the plane.
The general’s death was also confirmed to the BBC by a resident of Severomorsk, who lost a relative in the rank of major in the disaster. According to her, ten other officers from the unit in Safonov near Murmansk were on board with Otroshchenko. The general commanded the mixed air corps of the Northern Fleet.
Several posts mentioned him
Local public groups also reported on the general’s death. A post appeared on the social networks of the Maritime Museum of the Northern Fleet in which Otroshchenko was mentioned as one of the victims of the crash, but this information was later edited. The governor of the Murmansk region, Andrei Chibis, confirmed that soldiers of the Northern Fleet were among the dead, but did not provide details.
Otrošchenko was a decorated military pilot with more than 2,000 flight hours. In 2014, he was involved in the annexation of Crimea and later in the Russian operation in Syria. According to the calculations of the Mediazon website and the Russian service of the BBC, if confirmed, it will be the fourteenth dead Russian general since the Kremlin launched a full-scale war against Ukraine and the fifth in the rank of lieutenant general.
The An-26 plane crashed late in the evening on March 31 near the village of Kujbyševo in the Bakhchisaray district. All 29 people on board died. Sources from state agencies said it had “hit a cliff”. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, a “technical malfunction” was determined as the preliminary cause of the crash.
