OREANDA-NEWS The AN-12 aircraft found in the area of ejection of SU-34 pilots in the Far East, an individual life raft of one of the pilots, the Department of Information and Mass Communications of the Ministry of Defense of Russia said.

"The AN-12 aircraft of the search and rescue forces of the Eastern military district found an individual life raft of one of the pilots in the area of ejection of pilots. In the area of the ejection sent a helicopter search-and-rescue forces of the TSB, the ships and vessels in the vicinity of this place", - stated in the message.

"According to preliminary data, the accident occurred over the Tatar Strait. Not far from the village of Nelma of the Soviet-Gavan district, two SU-34 disappeared from radar, presumably they collided in the air," the source said.

Carried out search operation, the fate of the crews is established.

The source also added that the crew of one aircraft ejected, noting that"the incident occurred about an hour ago."

SU-34 is designed to destroy both ground and air objects of the enemy day and night under any weather conditions. The aircraft uses air-to-surface and air-to-air guided weapons of long range with multi-channel applications.

SU-34 flight range-up to 4000 km, maximum speed-up to 1900 km/h, combat load - up to 8 tons.

Until now, it was known only about two incidents with this type of aircraft-June 4, 2015 when landing at the airport Buturlinovka (Voronezh region) bomber rolled out of the runway and overturned. On July, 31  2018 a similar situation occurred in Hurba (Khabarovsk Krai), where the plane was rolled out almost 500 m. In both cases the reason was the failure of the braking parachute system.