KRASNODAR, October 19. /TASS/. The pilots of Russia’s military training jet L-39 Albatros, which crashed in the Sea of Azov on Thursday afternoon may be dead, a source in the Defense Ministry’s inquiry probing into the emergency said on Friday.

"There has been no official confirmation of the pilots’ death yet. The pilots or their bodies have not been found so far, but miracles don’t happen. The site of the crash has been established accurately. The plane’s fragments and one parachute have been found there. But the parachute’s pilot is missing," the source said, adding that too much time had elapsed since the L-39’s crash and there were no chances the pilots might stay afloat for so long.

According to earlier reports, the plane crashed during a training flight at about 17:00 Moscow time on Thursday. Technical failure is a likely reason. The plane carried no weapons. Both pilots are believed to have ejected themselves. According to the source, the L-39 had taken off from the airdrome of a naval aviation pilots’ retraining center in Yeysk.

The training plane L-39 Albatros was developed in Czechoslovakia. It performed the first flight in 1968. In 1972, it was selected as the main training plane for the military pilots of the Warsaw Treaty Organization’s member-states. Russia’s flight schools still use it as the main plane to train cadets.