A Myanmar Air Force Y-8F-200 transport aircraft skidded off the runway at Yangon international airport in the morning yesterday after one of its engines failed. No injuries were reported however the country’s largest airport was shut pending removal of the aircraft from the sensitive area.
The Y-8 is based on the Soviet An-12 design. The updated Y-8-200F has a 2.2 metre stretched fuselage. The Myanmar Air Force operates a total of 5 Y-8’s in two variants. The aircraft have the capacity for carrying 88 passengers and 20 tons of cargo. The Myanmar Air Force received its last two Y-8F-200 on 19 March 2016.
This is the second incident involving a Chinese made Y-8 transport plane to occur in Myanmar. On 7 June 2017, a Shaanxi Y-8 of the Myanmar Air Force was reported missing 30 nautical miles (56 km) west to Dawei. The aircraft was carrying 122 people. There were no survivors.
Myanmar is no stranger to aircraft crashes. It has suffered a string of crashes in both military and civil aviation sectors.
An F-7 fighter aircraft of Taungoo Air Base has crashed into a farm near KyunKone Village in Taungoo on 3 April 2018. It is learned that the F-7, which is used as a training aircraft, was believed to have crashed while trying to land the ground at around 11:30 am. It is reported that a pilot was killed on the spot during the crash.
On 16 October 2018, two Myanmar F-7Ms crashed near Magway, Myanmar, killing both pilots and a civilian on the ground. Both aircraft struck a broadcast tower. One plummeted into a rice paddy, while the other nose-dived near a famous Buddhist pagoda in the Magway region of central Myanmar.
In September 2017, a military G-4 jet fighter from Pathein Airbase crashed about 19 km from Rakhine State’s Gwa Township. Two pilots died in the accident.
On 9 February 2016 a Myanmar Air Force Beechcraft 1900 crashed killing 5 military personnel at Naypyidaw airfield.
A Polish-built Mi-2 helicopter crashed on 14 June 2016 in south central Bago killing 3 Myanmar Army personnel.
During 0830 11 June 2014 a MiG-29UB conversional fighter trainer crashed at Magwe however the two pilots managed to eject. No casualties were reported during the incident.
