Russian Fighter Jet Crashes Off Syrian Coast; Both Pilots Killed

www.haaretz.com...

Numerous reports on the interwebs. Haaretz is one of the better ones since it has a photo of the crash. Like modern journalism, it doesn't cut and paste well. (Embedded twitter and all that jazz.)

Russia's Defense Ministry said one of its fighter jets crashed off the coast of Syria Thursday morning and that both pilots aboard were killed. State news agency Tass cited the ministry as saying the Su-30 crashed while climbing after takeoff from the Russian air base at Hemeimeem in Syria.

The ministry said the plane did not come under fire and that preliminary information indicates the crash could have been caused by a bird being sucked into one of the plane's engines.

I am sad anytime a plane crashes and people are killed and this appears to be one of those and is genuine. Flying is the most deadly of our activities and there's no room for error either from the pilot or things beyond his control. It often ends in violent death. My best,

I'm no expert but looking at the images the aircraft didn't crash immediately on take-off as it's ended up a little way out to sea. So it's very sad the pilots couldn't deploy their ejector seats in time and most likely have lived to fly another day.