Dramatic video shows Russian Tu-95 bomber exploding after left wing erupts in a ball of flame during take off

January 21, 2016 Aviation Safety / Air Crashes, Russia, Troubled Areas
David Cenciotti

A minute-long footage shows the Tu-95MS crashing during take off at Ukrainka airbase in Russia’s Far East.

As we reported last year, the Russian Ministry of Defense suspended all the Russian Air Force Tu-95 Bear flights after a strategic bomber suffered an incident in Russia’s Far East on Jun. 8, 2015: the +60-year old Russian four-engine turboprop-powered strategic bomber and missile platform skidded off the runway and exploded after the left wing caught fire during the take off run at Ukrainka airfield.

As a consequence of the incident, the second involving a Bear in two years (followed, on Jul. 14, 2015 by another incident), two of the five-man aircrew were reportedly killed (only one casualty according to the first reports.)

Now, a video of the incident has been released. It shows the aircraft’s left wing catching fire during the take off roll, causing the aircraft to steer off runway and explode.

Along with the two Tu-95s, the last Summer’s Russian crashes include a Su-24 Fencer, two Mig-29 Fulcrums and a modern Su-34 Fullback.

H/T ‎Miguel Vargas-Caba‎ for the heads-up

Related articles
About David Cenciotti
WebsiteFacebookTwitterLinkedIn instagram
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

Related Articles

13 Comments

  1. According to Russian reports, it was some piece of landing gear that fell off and pierced the fuel tank – very much like the last Concorde accident

    • mmm, with the small difference that the Concorde fuel tank was rather punctured from a part coming off a preceding DC-10 “flying wreckage” of an American airline. It was not one of its parts, but rather junk left on the runway by the preceding departing wreckage.

      • Not exactly. The piece of metal from the previous plane cut the tires on the Concorde’s left main wheel bogey. The Concorde was moving very fast and the tires disintegrated. Pieces of the tires struck the underside of the wings and ruptured the fuel tanks.

      • NOTHING punctured the Concorde fuel tanks. The wear strip from the DC-10 ruptured Flight 4590’s tires, which then disintegrated, and a piece of tire debris hit the aircraft, the resulting shockwave ruptured a fuel tank and fuel leak.

        • ok, still not something due to the Concorde loosing parts, but rather to the preceding piece of junk called DC-10 dropping its parts on take off.
          So there is not much to share with this incident, regarding the cause.

      • Actually the Air France Mech that repaired the left wheel bogey left a spacer on his workbench causing the bogey to fail during the takeoff roll. Check the facts not the news reports of the time. The spacer was still on the guys workbench when checked after the accident and no replacement was found in the wreckage. The strip of metal from the DC10 was well down the runway from where the Concorde veered off the runway taking out the lights..

  2. Weird, but look at the timming of wing light. The explosion happends exactly at the moment the light went on. Looks more like electrical malfunction to me.

  3. Look at the timming of the explosion. It happens exactly as the left wing light should light up. The lights works just fine before that moment, but exactly as it should light up again, the explosion happens. Looks more like a electrical malfunction too me.

  4. So, even the Russian equipment fails now and then. Judging by the media one would think that Russian jets, tanks, missiles are perfect, without a fault, always perform and never fail (unlike the American overpriced piece of junk). Hmm interesting.

    • Actually the media gives Russian gear a bad reputation. Yet strangely their rubbish is maintaining a very high operational tempo in Syria much to the chagrin of the West.

Comments are closed.