site.btaUnjustifiably High Risk Was Main Reason for L-39ZA Aircraft Crash, Colonel Petko Vassilev Says

The main cause of the crash of the L-39ZA combat trainer was the taking of an unjustifiably high risk when performing complex aerial aerobatics, said Colonel Petko Vassilev, state expert at the Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation Unit of the Military Police Department, at a Defence Ministry press conference on Tuesday at which the results of the investigation of the L-39ZA trainer aircraft crash in September were presented.

Colonel Vassilev classified the aviation accident as a crash.

As additional causes, he pointed to the violation of safety measures, of the order the flight tasks were executed in, and that that there was not enough altitude reserve to ensure the safe execution of the acrobatics' manoeuvre, Colonel Vassilev explained.

On September 13, 2024, while preparing for a demonstration flight at the 3rd Air Base near Graf Ignatievo, an L-39ZA trainer aircraft crashed. As a result, the two pilots from the 12th Air Base in Dolna Mitropolia, Petko Dimitrov and Ventsislav Dunkin, perished and were posthumously promoted in rank.

At the beginning of October, the Ministry of Defence announced that the data from the "black box" of the L-39ZA training and combat aircraft had been successfully recovered and provided to the investigating team from the Military Prosecution Office.