Three Russian Nuclear Bomber crew members were killed after their ejector seats accidentally went off. The ejector seat system was reportedly triggered while the plane was preparing for take-off ahead of a training flight.
The regiment commander, sitting in the instructor’s seat, was among the three Russian nuclear bomber crew members killed after the three were ejected from the plane. It’s reported they were catapulted into the air but they did not have enough height to deploy their parachutes.
They hit the ground suffering injuries ‘incompatible with life’. It is not believed the supersonic long range Tu-22M3 bombers were loaded with nuclear weapons at the time of the accident.
An air force commission has been sent to the Shaikovka military airfield near Kaluga, some 200 miles southwest of Moscow, to establish the cause of the accident. Three years ago, a Tu-22M3 bomber split in two and erupted in flames after it crash-landed in the Arctic. And in 2004, a Tu-22M3 crashed in the Novgorod region, killing all four crew members.