3 pilots died in an incident with the Russian Aerospace Forces’ Tu-22M3 long-range bomber at a military airfield near Kaluga on March 23.
The Defense Ministry reported that the Tu-22M3 bomber abnormally triggered a catapult on the ground causing the death of the crew members. The emergency occurred during the planned preparation for the flight.
“Due to the insufficient height to deploy the parachutes, three crew members received injuries incompatible with life upon landing,” the Defense Ministry said.
The Tu-22M3 is a modernized version of the Soviet Tu-22M2, a strategic multi-mode supersonic bomber designed to engage targets on enemy territory. The warplane can reach a maximum speed of up to 2300 kilometers per hour. Russia has about 60 such aircraft in service.
RIP. Accidents do happen even if some of these aircraft have been upgraded and the safety record for a 40 year old strategic bomber is quite good.
Great Khan sad, Russian brother warrior STRONK! Find peace in heaven!!!!
‘Due to insufficient height to deploy the parachutes’ i.e. the catapult must be referring to the safety ejection seats. They flew up in the air and crashed down hard without time to airbrake with parachutes. I remember the Su-57 had the capability for safe ejection on the ground.
It is called a zero-zero ejection seat. The Zvezda K-36 is perhaps the best in the world in a series of ejection seats made by NPP Zvezda. Variants of this ejection seat have been used on a variety of aircraft, including the Su-25, Su-27, MiG-29, Su-30 MKI and the Su-57. TU22M3 is an older aircraft with all three K-22 downward-firing ejection seats, with a minimum safe ejection altitude of 250 meters (820 feet).
Indian SU-30MKI have the zero-zero seats. Iranians have put some on their upgraded F-14A as well.
One crew member has survived….could be because he had his seatbelt on.
old
The B-52 junk are 70 years old and new F-35 simply is a dud. Old or new is not the issue. Flying is risky business and accidents happen.
Sabotage,when you spend decades excelling in many aspects of fundamental enginneering it come to no surprise the older stuff is superior like since when millenials come up with passenger jets that can exceed mach3 as was the case of cccp tupolev-144?
Sorry bud,windows 10 can’t fix things:
Shaanti. May their brave souls rest in eternal peace.
RIP heroes
RIP Heroes. It awfully sounds like a sabotage. A freak accident like that never happened to a Russian aircraft to my knowledge.
Do seem to suffer their fair share of incidents with the VKS.
Now it’s a haunted plane.
Great Khan suggest you find brain mamtu!!!!!
All I can read is some goat noises.
Rest in peace, you are already Heros to Russia.