"At the same time, according to the data of the United Duty Dispatch Service of the Kaluga Region, there are no civilian casualties", - the Kommersant newspaper notes.
According to the Ministry of Defense, the ejection system triggered the aircraft before departure abnormally, as a result of which three crew members were fatally injured - due to insufficient height to deploy the parachutes, they received injuries incompatible with life upon landing. Earlier, a source of the Interfax news agency reported that a military plane had landed in an emergency mode at an airfield near Kaluga. According to the informed interlocutor, there were no weapons on board. A commission of the Aerospace Forces of Russia was sent to the airfield to conduct a technical inspection of the aircraft and establish the causes of the incident.
On the radio Sputnik air, Major General, Honored Military Pilot of Russia, Candidate of Technical Sciences Vladimir Popov shared his version of what happened. According to him, such incidents are extremely rare, although they are possible:
- This is a very rare occurrence. Extremely rare. In my memory, there was such a case on the Su-24. There, the automation worked, and there were purely mechanical actions: the handle (ejection handle) of the control wheel caught on the control handle - this is how it all happened. Then they brought the chair up to, so to speak, the norm: they shortened these supports by literally a few centimeters, and the problem was eliminated. And now the electrical part, most likely, has failed, shorted.
According to Vladimir Popov, weather factors and their underestimation during operation could have led to a short circuit: “There was moisture, there were frosts. on the wires - a short circuit, something else, sudden. That is, this impulse is enough to set fire to the squibs. And the squibs are triggered - it's practically a cannon shot, and off you go...".
"Tu-22M3 is a modernized version of the Soviet Tu-22M2, a strategic multi-mode supersonic missile-carrier bomber designed to destroy a target on enemy territory. This aircraft can reach a maximum speed of up to 2300 kilometers per hour, Russia has up to 60 of these machines in service",- the RIA Novosti agency notes.