Military aircraft crashes in central Vietnam

Part of a trainer aircraft falls next to a house in Quang Nam Province, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo by VnExpress/Dac Thanh

The incident happened at around 11:15 a.m., with the aircraft crashing near the Binh Minh neighborhood of Dia Nam Bac Ward of Dien Ban Town.

An eyewitness said he was working in the garden when he heard the sound of an aircraft, before seeing it coming over from the sea with a long trail of smoke.

He saw the pilot jumping out in a parachute seconds after that.

Debris from a trainer aircraft crash in a vegetable garden in Quang Nam Province, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo by VnExpress/Dac Thanh

The crash partly damaged the house of Nguyen Thanh Quoc.

Quoc, 37, said his family was watching television in one part of their house when they heard an explosion and saw some tile pieces of their roof falling down.

They ran out of the house and found part of their roof had collapsed, and a plane had crashed down a vacant piece of land around 10 meters from the house. Its debris were scattered all over the place, Quoc said.

People stand next a house partly damaged by a military aircraft crash in Quang Nam Province, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo by VnExpress/Dac Thanh

The Ministry of National Defense said the incident happened as Regiment 929, Division 372 of the Air Force was organizing a daytime training session, starting from Da Nang Airport. The Su-22 was piloted by Captain Do Tien Duc, taking off starting 11:04 a.m.

Ten minutes after taking off, Duc said the aircraft encountered an issue and could not land. The flight commander told Duc to get the plane out of residential area and parachute out of it. Duc took the plane away from residential area and parachuted around 19 km away from the runway, over Dien Nam Trung Commune of Quang Nam. The plane was damaged, but the pilot was unharmed, the defense ministry said.

The site of an aircraft crash in Quang Nam in central Vietnam, Jan. 9, 2023. Photo by VnExpress/Dac Thanh

At the crash site, the front and the back parts of the plane could be seen around 200 m away from each other.

A local resident who was working in their garden suffered slight injuries after being hit by the debris.

Firefighting and ambulance vehicles were deployed to the area. Police and military officers have blocked entry to the site and asked local residents to stay indoors.

Another Su-22 by the Air Force, piloted by Captain Tran Ngoc Duy, also encountered issues during a training session on Jan. 31 last year. While trying to land, Duy was ordered to parachute off it, but he tried to save the plane instead. The plane later fell and Duy died.

Su-22 planes were designed by the Soviet Union and have been in use since the 1970s. Vietnam began receiving these planes in 1979.