• All eight crew members on board were killed when a Ukrainian cargo plane carrying weapons from Serbia to Bangladesh crashed in northern Greece late on Saturday, according to Greek and Serbian authorities.
• Witnesses reported seeing the plane crash in a ball of flames close to Kavala before it exploded upon impact in nearby cornfields at around midnight local time.
• The eight crew members perished in the disaster, according to the airline Meridian, which has its base in Ukraine.

All eight crew members on board were killed when a Ukrainian cargo plane carrying weapons from Serbia to Bangladesh crashed in northern Greece late on Saturday, according to Greek and Serbian authorities.

Witnesses reported seeing the plane crash in a ball of flames close to Kavala before it exploded upon impact in nearby cornfields at around midnight local time. The pilot had already requested an emergency landing after reporting engine issues.

Burning wreckage from the Antonov An-12 aircraft was seen scattered across fields in drone photos taken at the scene.

The eight crew members perished in the disaster, according to the airline Meridian, which has its base in Ukraine. View More They were all Ukrainian citizens, according to the Ukrainian foreign ministry.

One crew member’s body has so far been found by Greek police, according to a spokeswoman for the civil protection department. A local mayor reported that six bodies were discovered during the initial drone survey of the region.

Nebojsa Stefanovic, the minister of defence for Serbia, claimed that the jet had been carrying 11.5 tonnes of defense-related goods, including mortar and practise shells. He stated that Bangladesh’s defence government served as the cargo’s buyer.

View of the crash scene of a Ukrainian company’s Antonov An-12 freight plane, just outside Kavala, Greece.

Denys Bogdanovych, Meridian’s general director, reaffirmed that assertion and claimed there was no connection between the crash and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.