Six crew members and 23 passengers were killed, the Defense Ministry has said

A Russian An-26 military transport plane crashed in Crimea on Tuesday evening, killing all 29 people on board, the Defense Ministry has said.

According to the MOD, communication with the aircraft was lost at around 6 PM local time during a “routine flight” over the strategic Black Sea peninsula.

The Russian Defense Ministry said there were “no signs of external impact on the aircraft,” implying that the plane had not been shot down by Ukraine. TASS cited a source as saying that the plane crashed into a mountain.

RIA Novosti reported that preliminary data suggests the aircraft may have suffered a technical issue.

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The An-26 is a twin-engine turboprop aircraft capable of transporting up to 40 soldiers and designed for deploying paratroopers and evacuating the wounded.