Ukrainian authorities say the death toll from Friday's military plane crash has now risen to 26.

The  victims died when a Ukrainian air force plane carrying 27 crew and passengers - who were military cadets - crashed and burst into flames near Kharkiv in the east of the country.

Deputy interior minister, Anton Gerashchenko, described the incident as a "shock." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the crash was a "terrible tragedy" and declared Saturday a day of mourning for the crash victims.

Zelensky also ordered that flights of Antonov-26 planes be halted pending the outcome of the investigation into the cause of the crash. "We are urgently creating a commission to investigate all the circumstances and causes of the tragedy," he wrote on Facebook.

Footage of the crash released by officials on social media showed the smouldering remains of the Antonov-26 transport plane.

Most of the dead were students of the Kharkiv National Air Force University, the air force said in a statement. 

The emergency services had earlier confirmed the deaths of twenty-two and reported two injured, with the search for three more people continuing.

Citing preliminary information, Kharkiv's regional governor Oleksiy Kucher said that some of the people on board managed to jump out of the plane when it was at low altitude. 

A preliminary analysis of the crash suggests that it most likely caught its wing on the ground, defense minister Andriy Taran said on Saturday. 

The minister also said that the crashed An-26 was manufactured in 1977 and its left engine had more than 5,000 flight hours in reserve before the next repair.

The State Bureau of Investigations reported that officials are studying four versions of the crash – technical malfunction of the aircraft's units, improper performance of the crew's duties, improper performance of the duties by persons who were responsible for flight control, and improper maintenance of the aircraft and its preparation for flight.

Meanwhile, final conclusions regarding the causes of the plane crash can be made after decoding the black box, which is still on the plane, Taran said.

The plane crashed at around 8:50pm local time (17:50 GMT), 1.2 miles from the Chuhuiv military air base, the emergency services said. The presidency said that according to preliminary information the transport plane crashed during a training flight.

The town of Chuhuiv is around 62 miles west of the front line where there is a fragile ceasefire between government forces and pro-Russian separatists.

In photos released by the emergency services, firefighters in helmets and reflective clothing sprayed aircraft debris with jets of water. The body of the plane burst into flames on landing and firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze after an hour.

The EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell sent his condolences on behalf of the bloc. "My thoughts are with the families and friends of those who lost their lives," he tweeted.
 

History of crashes

Several military planes have crashed in Ukraine during training flights in recent years.

A pilot was killed in December 2018 after his Su-27 fighter crashed during landing in the Zhytomyr region.

Two months earlier, the same model of fighter crashed in a neighboring region during the Clear Sky 2018 joint military exercises between Ukraine and NATO countries, killing the American and Ukranian pilots on board. 

In 2002, an Su-27 fell into the crowd at an airshow in Lviv in the western Ukraine killing 77 people and injuring 165 others.

In 2014, Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was downed killing 298 people over an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists.

Moscow has denied the findings of international investigators that a Russian BUK missile hit the Malaysian Airlines flight.

Video editing: Riaz Jugon