Russian Su-33 Jet Crash: Aircraft Crashes In Mediterranean While Landing On Kuznetsov Aircraft Carrier

The Russian Navy's jet Su-33 Flanker crashed Saturday in the Mediterranean while attempting to land on Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier. The incident comes just weeks after Russia lost an MiG-29.

Military sources close to the Aviationist said that the carrier-based multirole aircraft crashed while making a second attempt to land on the aircraft carrier. The report added that weather conditions in the area were favorable.

Sources reportedly said that the aircraft is believed to have missed the wires and failed to go around falling short of the bow of the warship.

No injuries were reported from the crash as the pilot successfully ejected and was picked up by a Russian Navy search and rescue helicopter.

Last month, a Mikoyan MiG-29K, which was part of a trio of MiGs that had taken off from Russian carrier Admiral Kuznetsov headed over Syria, crashed for unknown reasons.

“An aviation accident with carrier-based fighter MIG-29K occurred during exercise flights as a result of a technical fault during the approach landing a few kilometers from the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft-carrying cruiser,” the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement published by the state-controlled media at the time. “The Russian aircraft carrier group continues its activity in the Mediterranean Sea as planned. The flights of sea-based aviation continue.”

The incident gave rise to concerns over gaps in Russia’s carrier aviation capability, Eric Wertheim, a naval analyst and author of U.S. Naval Institute’s "Combat Fleets of the World," told USNI News at the time.

“Carrier aviation is a dangerous business but one of the big challenges the Russians have is they don’t have a wide pool of people with these skills,” Wertheim reportedly said. “A few years ago there were stories they were largely contractors as pilots. They’ve been trying to pass that skill on but there’s not the ability to do that because the pool is small and they’re not a lot of facilities available.”