Cadets among 26 people killed in Ukraine military plane crash
A total of 26 people, most of them air cadets, have been killed in a military plane crash in Ukraine.
Footage of the crash released by officials on social media showed the smouldering remains of the Antonov-26 transport plane.
Most of the dead were students of the Kharkiv National Air Force University, the air force said in a statement.
There were 27 people on board, 20 cadets and seven crew.
On Saturday, the death toll rose after three more bodies were found under the charred remains of the plane and one of the two survivors died in hospital from extensive burns.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the crash as a "terrible tragedy".
"We are urgently creating a commission to investigate all the circumstances and causes of the tragedy," he wrote on Facebook.
Mr Zelensky visited the only remaining survivor in a military hospital in Kharkiv, posting a picture of the 20-year-old cadet lying in bed with a bandaged head and right arm.
He said the cadet, Vyacheslav Zolochevsky, "came to his senses near the wreckage of the An-26."
"The plane was destroyed, there was fire, darkness and bodies all around. One of the guys was burning," he said on Facebook, adding that Zolochevsky rushed to try and save him. The second cadet died in hospital.
Doctors said that Mr Zolochevsky suffered a concussion but his life was not in danger.
The plane crashed at around 8.50pm local time (5.50pm GMT), just over a mile from the Chuhuiv military air base.
Most cadets onboard were believed to be between the ages of 19 and 22.
In photos released by the emergency services, firefighters in helmets and reflective clothing sprayed aircraft debris with jets of water.
The body of the plane burst into flames on landing and firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze after an hour.
The town of Chuhuiv is around 30 kilometres southeast of Kharkiv and 100 kilometres west of the front line where government forces are fighting pro-Russian separatists.
The presidency said that according to preliminary information the transport plane crashed during a training flight.
Several military planes have crashed in Ukraine during training flights in recent years. A pilot was killed in December 2018 after his Su-27 fighter crashed during landing in the Zhytomyr region.
Two months earlier, the same model of fighter crashed in a neighbouring region during the Clear Sky 2018 joint military exercises between Ukraine and NATO countries, killing the American and Ukrainian pilots on board.
In 2002, a Su-27 fell into the crowd at an airshow in Lviv in the western Ukraine killing 77 people and injuring 165 others.
The Antonov-26 is a light transport aircraft designed in Ukraine during the Soviet era. It is 24 metres long and has a wingspan of 29 metres and can fly at a cruising speed of 440 kilometres per hour.
In 2014, Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was downed killing 298 people over an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
Moscow has denied the findings of international investigators that a Russian BUK missile hit the Malaysian Airlines flight.
