Colonel-General Sergiy Drozdov, top commanding general of Ukraine’s Air Force, has been served a notice of suspicion in the Sept. 25 crash of a military Antonov An-26 aircraft, the State Investigation Bureau reported on Dec. 18.
The 58-year-old high-ranking officer is suspected of negligence that eventually caused the fatal accident, in which 26 men, including 20 young air force school cadets, were killed when their training aircraft crashed near the military airfield of Chuhiuv close to Kharkiv.
“As of today, the State Investigation Bureau… has acquired evidence on the basis of which certain individuals involved in the flight organization are suspected of misconduct,” bureau official Vadym Pryimachok said during a briefing on Dec. 18.
“We have served a notice of suspicion to the military unit’s flight control officer who was managing the flight mission on that day. Also, one was handed to the Air Force commanding officer who had breached his duty, which caused the tragedy.”
The list of violations during the fatal mission includes the fact that the aircraft pilot, Major Bohdan Kyshenya, lacked expertise in nighttime flights.
Gone In The Sky: What happened and why in Antonov An-26 crash
The Air Force spokesman was not available for comment immediately following the report.
Earlier, in late October, the official inquiry into the case confirmed that the tragedy was precipitated by poor flight control, operational violations, the crew’s weak preparedness for emergency situations, as well as the aircraft’s poor technical condition.
According to the probe, the crash was directly caused by the left engine’s PRT-24 control system. As the investigation proved, during the landing maneuver, the crew failed to equalize the thrust balance between the properly functioning right engine and the malfunctioning left one. Then, according to the probe, the crew failed to take a correct landing course.
As a result, the aircraft rapidly lost velocity, stalled out, and crashed near a highway some 1.5 kilometers away from the home airfield’s runway.
Only 1 person out of 26 onboard, 19-year-old cadet Vyacheslav Zolochevsky, survived the incident.
