A Russian Tu-22M3 strategic bomber crashed in the Irkutsk region, near the town of Svirsk, during a scheduled flight. According to first reports, the aircraft caught fire in the air before hitting the ground - witnesses say they saw the moment the machine „turned into a fireball before it fell."

The crash occurred in an uninhabited area, with no civilian casualties and no material damage. All four pilots managed to eject and open their parachutes; rescue teams found all of them, with injuries of varying severity, and took them to the nearest hospital. Preliminary reports point to a technical malfunction as the cause.

The Tu-22M3 is no ordinary aircraft. It's a supersonic long-range strategic bomber with variable-geometry wings, built to destroy naval and land targets with guided missiles and bombs - one of the key pillars of Russia's long-range aviation. When a machine like this goes down because of a technical error, it says something about the state of the fleet Moscow keeps parading on display.