Free Republic

Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko has died after being shot at his home in Kiev, according to police. Mr Babchenko, 41, was reportedly found bleeding in their apartment block by his wife and died in an ambulance. After writing about a crashed Russian military plane in 2016, Mr Babchenko said he received death threats and left his home country. He previously worked as a presenter on Ukrainian channel ATR TV, and has written about his military service. Ukrainian law enforcement confirmed his death in a Facebook post, written in Ukrainian. Kiev police chief Andriy Kryshchenko also told the media they suspected...

A British air accident investigator has told Sky News he believes there were explosions on board a plane before it crashed eight years ago, killing Polish President Lech Kaczynski. Frank Taylor's findings challenge the original reports of authorities The wreckage after the crash in April 2010

Rescue helicopters have discovered debris in the Black Sea from a Russian military transport plane which went off radar en route to Syria. Most of the passengers on the Tu-154 were members of the famous Alexandrov Ensemble army choir. According to the latest information, the Tupolev transport plane had 92 people on board, including 84 passengers and eight crew members. It went missing over the Black Sea at 2:40 GMT shortly after refueling at an airport near Sochi. Most of the passengers on board were members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, the official choir of the Russian Armed Forces, the Russian...

A Russian plane has disappeared from radar just minutes after take-off from the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russian media say. They are quoting a source at the emergency ministry as saying the missing aircraft is a Tu-154. Between 70 and 100 people are reported to be on board the plane. Unconfirmed reports say the aircraft belongs to the defence ministry, flying to Syria's Latakia province. Russian officials have so far made no comment.

On the 10th of April 2010, the Polish military plane, Tu-154, was involved in a fatal crash in the city of Smolensk, Russia, killing all the crew and passengers aboard. The deaths included the Polish President and First Lady, the last Polish President in exile, the Chief of the General Staff, Commanders-in-Chief, the Chairman of the Polish National Bank, the President of the Institute of National Remembrance, as well as a number of MP's, senators and prominent figures of the Polish elite, among the 96 dead. April 10, 2010 Polish Air Crash This incident, which includes these prominent deaths, naturally...

A video posted on YouTube (follow the link above to watch) shows the Russian Air Force Tupolev Tu-154B-2 in a condition known as Dutch roll, at a very low altitude, minutes after taking off from the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow on April 29. The pilots managed to land the plane on their second attempt, despite the aircraft banking and pitching wildly. Other sources in Russian claim that the plane hadn't been used for at least 6 years before they decided to flew it to a repairing plant in Samara. The Supreme Military Prosecuting Agency said to journalists that the plane's...

Newly-released cockpit voice-recorder transcripts from the crashed Polish presidential Tupolev Tu-154M show that the terrain-awareness system sounded a 'pull up' warning eight times before the jet collided with trees and disintegrated. The first warning at 10:40:42, about 20s before the accident, came almost immediately after the crew had called the aircraft's height as 100m. This also happened to be the decision height for the approach, which was being attempted in dense fog. Transcripts from the accident also show that, although the aircraft was descending, the height was still being called as 100m seven seconds later at 10:40:49. This could indicate...

A leading Polish defence analyst says late president Lech Kaczynski was well known for ordering pilots to land in dangerous conditions. The Polish leader was one of 97 people killed when his Russian-built Tupolev Tu-154 came down in thick fog near the Russian city of Smolensk on Saturday on its fourth attempt to land. Russian officials are investigating whether pilot error was to blame. Mr Kaczynski's delegation was headed to a memorial service in Katyn for 22,000 Poles who were massacred by Soviet secret police during World War II, a historic wound which has still not healed despite the passage...

The airplane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski Saturday is deeply shocking — but, sadly, not a complete surprise. Poland has for years been calling the Soviet-era military aircraft used by Polish officials “flying coffins.” Poland’s former Prime Minister Leszek Miller once had to leave the government airplane at an airport in Germany after an engine caught on fire. He was later nearly killed in a helicopter crash — and still politicians were too afraid of the public reaction to buy new aircraft. The possibility of a government aircraft crashing and killing an important official was so strongly discussed...

BISHKEK, September 26 (Itar-Tass) -- Manas International Airport in Kyrgyzstan’s Bishkek has been closed until 6:00 a.m. local time (4:00 a.m. Moscow time) because of a Tuesday collision of two planes, an airport source told Itar-Tass. All the departures are delayed. A Tu-154 commercial jetliner hit a tanker aircraft of the international anti-terrorist coalition while taking off at Manas Airport. The jetliner returned to the airport for an emergency landing. The U.S. tanker aircraft burned down, but people were not hurt. According to the preliminary information, the tanker aircraft came to the runway at an inappropriate time. A final conclusion...

<p>TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iranian state TV reported 80 people were killed when their passenger plane caught fire as it was landing Friday in Mashhad, northeastern Iran.</p> <p>The fire began after a tire blew out as the aircraft was landing, television reported.</p>

Search for Russia crash cluesFrom CNN Correspondent Ryan Chilcote Wednesday, August 25, 2004 Posted: 5:09 PM EDT (2109 GMT) MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Russian emergency workers are continuing to sift through twisted metal for clues about why two airliners crashed within minutes of each other, killing all 89 people aboard. Officials said one of the jets had sent a hijack distress signal after taking off from Moscow's Domodedovo Airport on Tuesday night, raising fears terrorists had struck. A spokesman for the Federal Security Service said Wednesday that while a preliminary investigation of the crash sites had not revealed evidence of...