Two dead in Armenia warplane crash: ministry

YEREVAN: Two crew members died in an Armenian warplane crash on Tuesday, the ex-Soviet republic's defence ministry said.

Debris of the SU-25 fighter jet "was found in the mountains near the town of Maralik" in Armenia's western Shirak region, the ministry spokesman Atrsrun Hovhannisyan said in a Facebook post.

"Two pilots, lieutenant colonel Armen Babayan and major Movses Manukyan, were killed" in the crash, he said.

The aircraft disappeared from radars on Tuesday morning, minutes after it took off for a routine training flight, the ministry had reported earlier.